


until dawn - bangtan - horror au

by kenthedoll



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: (and we love him), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Animal Death, Arguments, Bisexual Character(s), Comedy, Confessions of love, Crude Humor, F/M, Fake Character Death, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Horror, Kidnapping, Korean-American AU, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, OT7 are childhood best friends, Pining, Plot Twist, Revenge, Sexual Situations, Thriller, Unrequited Love, Use of a Ouija Board, Yoongi x Hoseok, a cabin in the woods, an abandoned sanatorium, established relationship(s) - Freeform, graphic depictions of violence/torture/gore, implied jimin x jin, lying, maze-like mines, mentions of Native American folklore, mentions of accidental minor character death(s), mentions of cannibalism, mentions of past jungkook x emily, mentions of serial killers/maniacs, namjoon x emily, nonconsensual bondage, nonconsensual drugging, psychological torment, psychotic character(s), seances, several near-death experiences, spoiler alert: Jin is a crazy bitch, taehyung x jungkook, therapy sessions, use of firearms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:28:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 48,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23796154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenthedoll/pseuds/kenthedoll
Summary: After a group of childhood friends reunite for their annual winter vacation within their eldest friend Seokjin's remote family mountain lodge, things quickly take a sinister turn, and they begin to suspect that they might not actually be alone.Gripped by fear, with personal tensions among the group running at an all time high, they'll be forced to make snap decisions that could mean life, or death, for everyone involved."Boom. Butterfly effect." 🦋ORThe Bangtan version of the popular (AND AMAZING!!!) horror video game, Until Dawn.
Relationships: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V, Jung Hoseok | J-Hope/Min Yoongi | Suga, Kim Namjoon/Emily Davis (Until Dawn), implied Park Jimin/Kim Seokjin - Relationship, mentions of past Jeon Jungkook/Emily Davis (Until Dawn)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 39





	1. INTRO: MEET THE CHARACTERS

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE
> 
> THIS STORY IS A DIRECT COPY OF THE VIDEO GAME "UNTIL DAWN"
> 
> IT HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED FROM MY WATTPAD ACCOUNT (@ ken-the-doll) BECAUSE OF WATTPAD'S INCREASING RESTRICTIONS

Hello!

I just wanted to let it be known in advance, that **this AU was created** **using my own gameplay, by making decisions that I feel Bangtan would most likely make** if they were in the characters' shoes.

But, that's definitely not to say that I think I know _exactly_ how Bangtan would behave in these situations! **You are more than welcome to disagree with the decisions I make.** In fact, I highly encourage you to express your feelings about the characters' decisions throughout.

 **This game has over 250 different endings** as well! So while I'm sure there are _several_ Until Dawn/Bangtan AUs already written out there, **this story will be unique to my gameplay** /decisions, and it's completely self indulgent.

Also, **this will be a Korean-American AU** , given that there are several mentions of Native American folklore. (i.e: the legend of the Wendigo.)

**\---**

Okay, character time! 😊

(Listed in order of appearance. Creds to the unknown creators of the gifs!)

❄️ **JIMIN** ❄️

**Game character:**   
_Sam_

**Traits:**   
_Diligent, considerate, adventurous._

**Relationships:**   
_Jimin is closest with Seokjin, Yoongi, & Jeongguk. He also has an implied interest in Jin. Jimin & Jeongguk make a great team, however, Jimin gets a hell of a lot done on his own as well._

**\---**

❄️ **YOONGI** ❄️

**Game character:**   
_Chris_

**Traits:**   
_Methodical, protective, humorous._

**Relationships:**   
_Yoongi is closest with Seokjin, Jimin, & Hoseok. Yoongi & Seokjin are the foundation of the group of friends, as they were the first to meet in elementary school. He has an obvious crush on Hoseok, but is too afraid to act on it. Yoongi & Hoseok make a great team._

**\---**

❄️ **TAEHYUNG** ❄️

**Game Character:**   
_Jessica_

**Traits:**   
_Confident, trusting, irreverent_ _._

**Relationships:**   
_Taehyung is the newest addition to the group, therefore he is closest to Jeongguk. He is also in an established relationship with Jeongguk, however, Taehyung spends a majority of the story attempting to survive on his own._

**\---**

❄️ **EMILY** ❄️

_An original game character._

**Traits:**   
_Intelligent, resourceful, persuasive_ _._

**Relationships:**   
_Emily is currently in a relationship with Namjoon. She used to be in a relationship with Jeongguk, until he broke up with her, so needless to say, she despises Taehyung. But, like Jimin, Emily can also get a lot done on her own (we love a strong independent woman)._

**\---**

❄️ **NAMJOON** ❄️

**Game character:**   
_Matt_

**Traits:**   
_Motivated, ambitious, active_ _._

**Relationships:**   
_Namjoon is in a relationship with Emily. He doesn't get along with Jeongguk at first, but they come around eventually. Namjoon & Taehyung's friendship grows stronger as the story progresses, as he spends a majority of the night attempting to survive on his own as well._

**\---**

❄️ **JEONGGUK** ❄️

**Game character:**   
_Mike_

**Traits:**   
_Intelligent, driven, persuasive_ _._

**Relationships:**   
_Jeongguk is closest with Taehyung & Jimin. He is currently in a relationship with Taehyung, and he used to be in a relationship with Emily, until he broke up with her. Jeongguk spends a solid amount of the night risking his life in search of Taehyung. Jeongguk & Jimin also make a great team._

**\---**

❄️ **HOSEOK** ❄️

**Game character:**   
_Ashley_

**Traits:**   
_Academic, inquisitive, forthright._

**Relationships:**   
_Hoseok is closest with Jimin & Yoongi. He has a mutual crush on Yoongi, but both of them have yet to act on it. Hoseok & Yoongi = the dream team._

**\---**

❄️ **SEOKJIN** ❄️

**Game character:**   
_Josh_

**Traits:**   
_Complex, thoughtful, loving_ _._

**Relationships:**   
_Seokjin is closest with Jimin and Yoongi, especially following the tragic and mysterious deaths of his younger twin sisters, Hannah and Beth, during the group's annual winter vacation the year before. Seokjin would do anything to protect the people he loves._

**\---**

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy the story.


	2. 🦋PROLOGUE🦋

**[ONE YEAR AGO]**

****

"Oh, my God. I can't believe you actually did this," Emily told Taehyung, as they all stood together in the kitchen of Seokjin's family lodge, upon the snowy peaks of Blackwood Mountain.

"Don't you guys think this is just a _little bit_ cruel?" Jimin shook his head distastefully at his friends.

Taehyung and Jeongguk had planned to pull a seemingly harmless prank on one of Jin's younger sisters, Hannah, who'd had a blatantly obvious crush on Jeongguk from the very first day they'd met.

He had never shown any interest in her before, but according to Taehyung, "oh, come on. She deserves it," and as for the rest of them? They'd all been bored out of their gourds, just waiting for someone or something to come along and change that, when Taehyung and Jeongguk suddenly approached them with their mischievous idea.

So as Seokjin, and his best friend Yoongi, lay drunkenly slumped against the sleek surface of the island counter, Jeongguk had placed a handwritten note on the opposite end of it, for Hannah to find later on in the night.

**_Hannah,_ **

**_You look so damn hot in that shirt... but I bet you're even hotter out of it._ **

**_Come to the guest room at 2am._ **

**_-JKJ_**

**_xxx_ **

Emily, of course, saw no problem with the idea, considering she'd been officially dating Jeongguk for the last 6 months.

"It's not her fault she has a huge crush on Jeongguk!" Jimin defended his closest friend from the rest of them.

"Hannah's been making moves on him," Taehyung replied with a simple shrug. "I'm just looking out for my girl, Em."

"Yeah. Just because he's class president, doesn't mean he belongs to everyone," Emily added, as they all followed Taehyung down the hallway, and over to the stairs in the foyer. "Jeongguk is _my_ man."

"Hey, Em," Jeongguk shook his head at that, "I'm not anybody's man."

Emily just scoffed in response. "Whatever you say, darling~!" she singsonged and, while they all ascended the staircase together, Jimin split off from the group in search of Hannah.

"Hannah?" he called throughout the spacious lower half of the Kim family lodge, but he was simply too late, as--by the time everyone else had gotten into position, hiding in various spots throughout the guest room--Hannah had already taken to finding Jeongguk's note and eagerly moving to fulfill his enticing request.

Emily giggled beside Taehyung, from their shared hiding place, beneath the double bed.

"She's here! Shh!" she whisper-yelled to the rest of them, while Jeongguk was standing idly near the foot of the bed, awaiting Hannah's arrival.

He didn't need to wait very long, though, as she let herself inside the room a short moment later.

"Jeongguk?" Hannah called his name, after she quietly pushed the door shut behind herself, "it's Hannah..."

"Hey, Hannah," he answered cooly, as he slowly made his way over to her.

Meanwhile, Hannah's twin sister, Beth, asked their brother, "hey, did you see that?" after she could've sworn she saw the silhouette of a person, standing just a few yards beyond the fence, outside of the kitchen window. "Dad said it would just be us this weekend..."

There was no answer, of course--given the fact that Jin and Yoongi had been blacked out cold for the past several minutes--so Beth called her brother's name.

"Jin?" she raised an expectant brow at him, but she quickly discerned that it was to no avail, after discovering the empty bottle of liquor resting on its side between him and Yoongi. "Jeez, Jin... once again, brother, you've outdone us all."

Then, she moved to assess the paper on the counter beside him instead.

"Oh, my God," she rolled her eyes, having discovered Jeongguk's steamy message to Hannah, before she thought aloud, "what did our naïve sister get herself into now?"

Beth was suspicious of Jeongguk's motives, as he seemed quite happy with Emily--and perhaps everything wasn't exactly as it seemed--but nevertheless, Beth knew that whatever was going on between her twin and their brother's friend, would be sure to stir up plenty of problems within the group.

Little did Beth, or any of them, know just how much all of their lives were suddenly about to change, shortly following the events of that night.

"Ugh," she groaned and, as she let the note fall upon the counter once more, she reluctantly sighed, "intervention time," before she focused on searching the lodge for her sister.

"I got your note..." Hannah told Jeongguk with a bashful smile.

"Glad you could make it," he offered her a flirty smirk and, while he moved a little closer, he added, "maybe we should start with a little, you know... making out? See where it goes from there?"

Hannah nodded in agreement, but she took it a step further, when she bravely reached to pop the buttons of the shirt that Jeongguk, apparently, found _so damn hot_.

"Ohh, _hell_ _yeah_..." Jeongguk breathed out in anticipation.

"Oh, my God! She's taking her shirt off!" Emily's voice could suddenly be heard from somewhere within the room, which caused Hannah's hands to pause at the front of her half-open top.

"What??" Hannah's brows furrowed, while she quickly tugged the split material of her shirt closed over her chest. "Oh, my God..."

She shook her head in embarrassment when, one by one, their friends began to emerge from their hiding places. Emily even had Namjoon record the entire thing on his phone.

" _Namjoon_?!" Hannah stared at him in disappointment, as if to silently say that it was quite unlike him to behave in such a way. "What are you all doing here?"

Then, as he watched a look of betrayal form on her face in that moment, Jeongguk immediately regretted his decision to take part in Emily & Taehyung's shenanigans.

It seemed that he, nor any of the rest of them, really, had thought any of this through.

"Uh--Hey, I'm sorry, Hannah," Jeongguk apologized to her directly. "This all got out of hand--"

"Hannah!" Jimin suddenly burst through the door then, after he heard her voice echoing down the hall. "Hannah. Hey, honey, don't," he tried to reach for her hands, but she quickly recoiled. "It's just a--"

"Jeongguk?!" Hannah peered up at him then, with that same look of utter betrayal still etched in her features, all before she ripped the door open and stormed out of the guest room without another word.

"--stupid prank..." Jimin sighed to himself when the door immediately slammed in his face.

"Ah, damn..." Jeongguk hung his head in shame, as Jimin turned to fix the rest of the room with a glare.

"You guys are _jerks_. You know that?" he shook his head at them, before he promptly left the room to search for his best friend.

"Hannah!" he called for her, but she had already raced down the steps and out into the bone-chilling temperature of the great outdoors--not without gaining the attention of her concerned twin sister in the process.

"Jin," Beth shook their older brother's shoulder, after she suddenly spotted another silhouette passing by the kitchen window. " _Jin_!" she tried, but again, to no avail.

" _Fuck_ ," Beth muttered to herself, before she immediately moved to find their friends. "Guys! There's someone outside!" she warned, as she watched them race one another down the steps, in order to reach the front door of the lodge.

"Hannah!!" Jimin cupped his hands around his mouth while he shouted her name into the darkness.

"What's going on?" Beth's brows furrowed in confusion when she joined the rest of them outside. "Where's my sister going?"

"It's fine," Taehyung rolled his eyes, as if Hannah was overreacting, "she just can't take a joke."

"It was just a _prank_ , Han!" Emily added.

"What did you do?" Beth glared between the two of them.

"We were just messing around, Beth," Jeongguk shook his head dismissively, despite the guilty feeling that crept up his spine. "It wasn't serious--"

"You _jerks_!" Beth spat, before she turned on her heel and braved the icy weather, in search of her runaway sister.

"Should we go after her?" Jeongguk asked for anyone's opinion.

"You know, I kinda think you're the _last_ person she wants to see right now, Guk," Jimin answered bluntly.

Meanwhile, Beth growled to herself, "damn it, Hannah! Where are you?!" as she tried her best to follow the quickly-fading footsteps, that were leading her deeper and deeper into Blackwood Pines.

With the hefty snowflakes falling around and upon her, Beth found it increasingly difficult to tell where she'd been and where she hadn't, but even so, she was determined to find her sister.

"Hannah!" Beth breathed a sigh of relief, once she finally spotted Hannah's figure, kneeling defeatedly before the edge of a steep cliff.

"Oh, my God, you must be _freezing_!" she quickly removed her puffy jacket, in order to wrap it around her twin's shoulders. "Here. Take my coat."

"I'm such an _idiot_!" Hannah cried, as her sister knelt beside her in the snow. "I'm so _dumb_!"

Beth's lips parted in an attempt to protest, but she was immediately cut off by a terrifying shriek, that sounded from somewhere beyond the hazy tree line behind them.

"Hannah...?" Beth blindly reached for her hand, as the pair stared into the darkness with matching expressions of horror.

"Beth...?" she gulped, before she laced their fingers and began to lead Beth away from the area, in the direction of--what she could only hope was the right path back to--the lodge.

However, soon after they made the nearly-fatal mistake of glancing over their shoulder to gauge the distance between themselves and their assailant, Hannah and Beth were slipping over the edge of the cliffside.

The only thing that kept them from falling to their immediate deaths, was the firm grip Beth had, of both the thick root of a nearby tree, and one of Hannah's slippery hands.

"Hold on!!" Beth cried, as she felt her sister's nails digging into the flesh of her wrist, in a desperate attempt to keep from slipping out of her grasp.

Then, at the top of the cliff, a gloved hand was suddenly outstretching toward them.

Therefore, Beth clearly only had two options; **She could drop Hannah** , in order to reach for the potentially helping hand from above, **or she could let go** of the root, allowing for both of them to take the fall.

However, before she could even manage to process her decision, the root snapped from the weight of their dangling bodies, and they inevitably fell to the jagged rocks of the wintry mountainside below.

🦋

In the days following the tragic accident, Hannah & Beth Kim were both officially declared missing, as their bodies were never located.

Soon after, the close-knit group of friends parted ways, as they promptly returned home, with both guilt and grief weighing heavy within their hearts.

**\---**

** THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT **

_A tiny butterfly flapping its wings today, may lead to a devastating hurricane weeks from now._

_The smallest decision can dramatically change the future._

_Your actions shape how your story unfolds._

_Your story is one of many possibilities._

_Choose your actions carefully._

🦋


	3. 🦋ONE - MEMENTO MORI⏳

_So, you have committed to commence with this "story."_

_Before we begin there are a few things I need to make sure you understand._

_You see, no one can change what happened last year._ _The past is beyond our control._ _You have to accept this in order to move forward._

_But there is freedom in this revelation!_

_Everything that is done, every decision that is made from now on will open doors to the future._ _I want you to remember this. Every single choice that is made will affect the fate of those involved._

_This is significant._

_I want to help you see this through._

_Sometimes, these things can be a little scary--even terrifying--but I am here to make sure that no matter how upsetting things may get, you will always find a way to work through it._

_Where I come from, way up North in Sweden, the nights are 18 hours long._ _Why do you think people are afraid of the dark?_

_Darkness, after all, is the unseen and therefore the unknown, and what could inspire fear more than the terror of uncertainty?_

_Well, we seem to be out of time for this session, but we'll talk again, very soon._

_Until then, I suggest you try to stay away from dark places._

**-Dr. Hill**

**\---**

**[PRESENT DAY]**

**(A/N:** Character choices are **highlighted** **in bold 🦋)**

_"Today is the one year anniversary of the dreadful tragedy that took place on Mount Kim. Sheriff Annie Cline, who was in charge of the investigation..."_

_"Thanks for having me, Marty,"_ a woman's gentle voice spoke into Jimin's ears through the headphones he wore, as he listened to the podcast Jeongguk had taken to sending their group chat, on the shuttle ride up to the Kim family lodge.

 _"...listeners, here is an update on Hannah and Beth Kim, the twins who are still missing,"_ Marty, the host, announced before Sheriff Cline began to speak.

_"One year ago tonight, the Kim sisters left the safety of their parents' lodge and headed out into a snow storm."_

_"Is there suspicion of foul play?"_

_"Not officially, no. There is one individual we're considering as a person of interest, but his whereabouts are currently unknown. He has an interesting history with the Kim family... he had warned them against pursuing their construction project and claimed the land was sacred to his forefathers."_

_"You know, there is still the old Sanatorium on the mountain,"_ Marty thought aloud, referring to the creepy, old, abandoned building that resided just a few miles up the mountain from the lodge. 

Seokjin's parents had warned all of them against venturing through Blackwood Pines in its direction, on the day their children and their closest friends officially commenced their yearly winter tradition, as they were sure that nothing good could've come from trespassing on the property.

_"Could he be hiding there?"_

_"My officers searched the grounds, but the girls themselves couldn't have made it that far..."_ the sheriff spoke in a solemn tone, and Jimin immediately felt that gut-wrenching twinge of guilt in his stomach upon recalling the details of the tragic event.

Jimin had lost two of his best friends that day--all of them had--and despite the fact that none of them had anything to do with what happened to the Kim twins, they all still felt responsible in some way.

_"Something about that mountain seems to breed tragic events."  
_

_"More than you know, Marty,"_ Sheriff Cline told him sadly.

 _"Well, thank you for joining us, Annie,"_ Marty replied sincerely, before he announced, _"to the Kims tonight, their son Seokjin, on this, the anniversary of the mysterious disappearance of Hannah & Beth Kim."_

Jimin's brows furrowed in confusion when he heard this, and he immediately unlocked his phone, in order to bear witness to the video that began to play in the corner of the screen.

Seokjin's hands momentarily blocked the camera while he pressed record and adjusted the lens, to ensure that he could be seen well from the waist up, as he stood in the living room of his home.

 _"Alright. Well, hello, friends and fans,"_ he greeted the camera with a friendly smile and a wave, once he'd backed far enough away from it.

Jimin felt his eyes prick with tears, as he watched the man sit down and put on a fake-happy face for the world, while he was sure, that in reality, Jin was _far_ from happy. 

_"It's beyond awesome to have you guys all back this year. First off, I gotta say, I am super excited to welcome all my pals back to the annual Blackwood winter getaway!"_ he began with a cheerful fist pump. 

Jimin envied Jin's strength in that moment.

 _"So, let me just, you know... let's take a moment to address the "elephant in the room" for a second,"_ Seokjin's smile faded as he spoke then, and Jimin swore he felt his heart shattering all over again for his close friend. 

_"I know you're all probably worried about me... and I know it's gonna be tough on all of us going back, after what happened last year. But, I just want you all to know, that it means so much to me that we're doing this, and I... I know it would mean so much to Hannah and Beth that we're all still here together, you know... thinking of them..."_

With that sentiment, Jimin felt the bittersweet ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, while he let the pad of his thumb swipe a tear away from Jin's face, after it had fallen from Jimin's jawline onto the screen of his phone.

_"I really want to spend some quality time with each and every one of you, and share some moments that we'll never forget... for the sake of my sisters, you know?"_ Seokjin's grin returned, despite the tears that began to form in his own eyes, so he quickly wrapped it up. 

_"Okay! So, let's party like we're fuckin' porn stars,"_ Jin laughed, _"and make this one a trip we will never forget, alright?"_

**\---**

**[MEMENTO MORI - 10 HOURS UNTIL DAWN]** **  
**

"Ah, _what_?" Jimin sighed to himself when he found a note, left by Yoongi, on the gate leading up to the cable car station.

_**Gate's busted. Climb over!** _

_**-YGM** _

After trying the gate for himself--and finding that it was, in fact, busted--Jimin shook his head at the inconvenience, before he turned to the cobblestone wall beside it and put his expert mountain climbing skills to good use, in order to scale it and reach the other side.

Then, he jumped down without problem, and his boots crunched against the snow while he made his way up the pathway to the cable car station. The tourist map, posted right outside of it, had been graffitied in red spray paint.

**THE PAST IS BEYOND OUR CONTROL**

"Hm. Graffiti all the way up here?" Jimin thought aloud, but disregarded the discovery as the work of a few mind-numbingly bored teenagers, as he approached the door of the station.

But, after he instantly recognized the backpack on the bench beside it, he surveyed his surroundings for a moment, before he called out for, "Yoongi?"

There was no answer, however, so he looked back at the backpack. "Your bag's here... where are you?" he wondered. "You're not _in_ the bag, are you?" he joked, even if he was sure Yoongi, wherever he was, couldn't hear him.

Then, Yoongi's phone vibrated and the screen lit up, from where it was sticking out of the front pocket of his bag, but given the choice to either **look at the text message or zip up his bag** for him, Jimin respectfully zipped up the pocket and ignored the message.

"Maybe I shouldn't snoop through Yoongi's things."

🦋

"Jimin!" the older man's voice suddenly sounded from behind him, and Jimin was quick to turn on his heel and greet Yoongi with a beaming smile.

"Yoongi! Hey!"

"So, I found something kinda cool," Yoongi told him with a smirk, as he reached for his bag and promptly swung an arm of it over his shoulder.

"What is it?"

"I'm not gonna tell you, but come on. It's this way," he gestured to the pathway leading along the side of the building and Jimin raised a skeptical brow at that.

"Where?"

"Right around here," Yoongi answered. "Gonna blow your mind."

Jimin shook his head with a laugh in response, but nevertheless, he followed him down the path. Then, upon noticing a WANTED poster plastered on the side of the building, Jimin felt a chill run down the back of his neck, and it wasn't just because of the snow.

"Oh, man..." he nervously bit into his lower lip as he read over the contents.

** WANTED **

**MILGRAM, VICTOR  
Sex: Male  
Height: 6'2"  
Last known location: Blackwood Pines  
Last seen: 03/16/1998**

**Wanted in connection with a first-degree arson offense, as well as various death threats.**

**Anyone with information regarding this dangerous criminal should contact the BPMC as soon as possible.**

**Blackwood Provincial Mounted Constabulary  
July 1998**

"Nice! Think we'll get a visit from _America's Most Wanted_?"

"Looks like _someone_ thought so..."

"Oh, come on. This place is abandoned most of the year," Yoongi brushed it off while he continued walking. "Nobody comes up here."

Jimin bounced his brows, as if to silently say that Yoongi shouldn't jinx them like that, when he followed him over to a makeshift shooting range.

"Tada!" Yoongi gestured to the pair of pellet rifles that lay on a table, before a small field of targets. "Pretty rad, right?"

"Yeeaah..." Jimin replied through feigned enthusiasm.

"Come on, look at these beauties!" Yoongi said as he lifted one of the guns, being sure to keep the barrel pointed toward the ground.

"Uh, "beauties" is not the word that comes to mind. Why is this even here?" Jimin's brows furrowed in confusion, which prompted Yoongi to briefly wonder the same thing.

"What do you mean?" he shrugged.

"What the hell is a _shooting range_ doing at the base of a _ski lodge_?"

"Uh, dude, have you ever _met_ Jin's dad?"

"Yeah," Jimin knowingly pursed his lips.

"He thinks he's like Grizzly Adams or something," Yoongi laughed, before he gestured toward the other rifle. "Wanna try?"

"Oh, no," Jimin shook his head with a fond smile. "You go ahead, _Grizzly_."

"Alright. Here goes," Yoongi raised the rifle in his hands and, with one eye closed, he aimed through the scope at a targeted sack of sand that hung from a tree branch, before he pulled the trigger and a pellet hit the bullseye. 

"Wooow," Jimin watched on with exaggerated enthusiasm, "nice shootin', Tex!"

"Alright," Yoongi smirked at that. "I'm bad. I'm a badass."

"I'm gonna go ahead and guess that it was a wild case of Beginner's Luck."

"Nah, I don't think so, Chim," Yoongi begged to differ, and raised the barrel of the rifle once more, in order to prove it. He aimed at a beer bottle, pulled the trigger, and instantly broke the glass.

"Well, anybody and their brother could shoot a bottle _that_ big, _that_ close," Jimin teased him, just as a squirrel came scampering onto the target field for a fallen acorn, giving Yoongi the option to either **shoot the squirrel** **or** **aim for another target**.

Much to Jimin's relief, Yoongi shot the latter (another sand sack) rather than the former, which earned him a chipper, "nice shot," from his younger friend.

🦋

"Your ass just got _sacked_!" Yoongi playfully taunted the target he shot, while Jimin just observed him with an amused grin.

However, as the cable car could be seen finally returning to the station with a mechanical screech, just a few yards out, Jimin told Yoongi, "hey, sharpshooter, our ride's coming."

"Wait! I'm just getting the hang of this!"

"Come on, Yoongi! Cable car!" Jimin called back to him, without looking, as he began to make his way back to the other side of the station.

With that, Yoongi reluctantly set the rifle back where he found it, and promptly followed Jimin away from the range.

"It's definitely weird, coming back here after a whole year..." Yoongi suddenly thought aloud.

"Yeah... I swear, the moment I got here, it just _all_ came flooding back."

"Year goes fast..." Yoongi sighed softly while Jimin tried the door of the station, but found that it was locked.

"Hey. Door's locked," he told Yoongi, who's brows furrowed in confusion as well upon hearing that.

"Yeah. Jin wanted us to keep it locked--keep people out."

"He said that?" Jimin tilted his head in response because this was news to him. "What people?" he asked out of concern for his friends.

"I dunno," Yoongi said while he pulled the key to the station out of his coat pocket. "He said they found people sleeping in the station one time."

"Creepy..." Jimin commented as he stepped aside to let Yoongi unlock the door for them.

"After you," Yoongi gestured, after pushing the door open.

"A real gentleman," Jimin hummed, and he led the way inside, before Yoongi closed and locked the door behind them as well.

While Jimin watched the steadily approaching cable car, Yoongi pocketed the key and moved to stand beside him at the railing.

"Ugh. I thought the car was closer," Jimin whined, quite adorably.

"Guess we gotta wait."

"I'm starting to get the appeal of killing time at the shooting range..." he groaned. "How long is this gonna take?"

"It's a big mountain," Yoongi shrugged.

"Yeah..." Jimin nodded in agreement. "It's so beautiful during the day, but at night it just feels _menacing_... like a sleeping giant."

"You gonna publish?"

"What?"

"Your pretty poem?" Yoongi light-heartedly teased him. " _The Sleeping Giant of Blackwood Forest_ ," he titled it in a dramatic tone of voice.

"Oh, shut up," Jimin's cheeks flushed an embarrassed shade of red when Yoongi turned to survey the inside of the station.

"What a crazy place to set up house..." he thought aloud, upon discovering a vintage poster of the Sanatorium that was plastered to the wall, above the emergency brake system for the cable car, "no matter how rich you are."

**BLACKWOOD PINES**  
**Hotel and Sanatorium**  
**For a healthy body and mind**

"They're not that rich," Jimin joked about the Kim family, "they only bought a _mountain_. You coming?"

Yoongi craned his head then, to discover the cable car that had finally arrived.

"Yeah, well, I was gonna stay here and catch some Zs," Yoongi joked as well while he joined Jimin inside the car, "but okay." 

Jimin sat down first and Yoongi sat beside him, which prompted him to say, "it's just like going to the prom," just as the car momentarily jerked backward, before it slowly but surely began to carry them off to the lodge.

"Here we go!"

"Right. Adventure begins," Yoongi narrated.

"Oh, I hope this was the right thing to do."

"What?"

"You know... get everyone together on the anniversary?" Jimin explained his thought process. "I mean, Jin seemed really pumped about us all doing something, didn't he?" he asked rhetorically, with a timid smile on his face that Yoongi _definitely_ noticed, but didn't bother to comment on.

"Yeah, no, he definitely did," Yoongi nodded. "I haven't seen him so excited about something in forever."

"Good, good," Jimin nodded as well, and he felt a tiny bit of warmth seeping into his chest at the thought of Seokjin being genuinely happy, for the first time in what felt like forever. "It's hard to tell with him, and I..." he finally admitted, "I've kind of been worried. I can only imagine what he's going through..."

"Yeah, I don't know how he's managed to keep himself pulled together. I know I'd be a wreck..." Yoongi gave his two cents on the matter, before he assured Jimin, "but yeah, no; This is a good idea."

"I hope everyone else feels the same way," Jimin sighed.

"We're all here, aren't we?"

"Thanks, bro," Jimin playfully punched Yoongi's bicep. "Good talk."

Yoongi just chuckled at that, before he kindly suggested, "you know what? Let's just--Let's just stop talking about what happened and enjoy the trip."

"Yeah. You're right," Jimin nodded once more, so Yoongi offered him a thoughtful smile, before he decided to tell him a story.

"You know how Jin and I met?"

"No," Jimin answered, after thinking it over for a moment and discovering that he'd never heard the story before.

"Third grade," Yoongi answered. "Jin sat in the back of the room, I sat in the front. We didn't even know each other existed, but the kid sitting next to Jin started strap-snapping the training bra on the girl in front of him, so the teacher made him move to the front--where I was sitting."

"Okay? So?"

"So, I got moved to the back."

"And...?"

" _And_ next to Jin!" Yoongi concluded enthusiastically. "That's how we met, and we became friends, to this day."

"A match made in heaven."

"If it weren't for the fact that Jeanie Simmons hit puberty, like _three years_ early, and on _that_ _day_ decided to wear a low-cut shirt that showed off her training bra? I mean, who knows? You could be riding in this cable car alone, right now, or talking to some other person entirely," Yoongi said in amazement.

Jimin took a moment to think about how different it would be if Yoongi was never part of their group, especially considering the fact that Yoongi was the reason Jimin was even part of the group in the first place. 

Shortly after meeting Seokjin, Yoongi introduced him to his other pals at recess one day and, being the new kid--who also happened to be _filthy rich_ \--Jin felt grateful for Yoongi and the unconditional kindness he'd shown him.

Jimin couldn't possibly fathom a world without Seokjin or Yoongi, or any of their friends, being as close as they were, and neither could Yoongi.

"Boom," he hummed, "butterfly effect."

🦋

Meanwhile, as Taehyung sat outside the upper cable car station, eagerly awaiting the arrival of _a certain someone_ , his leg began to bounce in anticipation.

"Boy, oh boy, oh boy," he sighed a visible breath of air into the space before him, before he stood from the bench to get a better look at the position of the cable car, and he about jumped right out of his skin at the sudden sound of someone knocking on the door of the station as he walked past it. " _Oh_! What the hell?!"

"Tae!" Yoongi's voice was slightly muffled through the door, but Taehyung could easily see his and Jimin's faces through the window of it.

"Tae, over here!" Jimin called for him as well.

"Um, are you guys having some sort of really weird stroke?" Taehyung stared back at the pair with an unamused expression.

"We're stuck in this stupid thing," Yoongi rolled his eyes at that. 

"Can you please let us out?" Jimin stuck his lower lip out, and that was one of the only reasons why Taehyung decided to play nice and let them through, after they'd just scared him half to death. "Pretty please?"

So Taehyung gave an audible sigh of reluctance, as he moved to the control panel beside the door, and promptly flipped the switch to unlock it.

"Oh, my God, I thought we were goners," Yoongi exaggerated when he joined Taehyung's company with Jimin in tow. "Another ten minutes in there and I would've chewed off my own leg."

"Oh, that's sick, Yoongi," Jimin shook his head distastefully.

"Look, I got some meat on my bones," Yoongi playfully argued. "This is all muscle down here," he gestured vaguely to his legs.

"Right, uh huh," Jimin nodded sarcastically and, as Taehyung had become caught up in observing their conversation, Yoongi leaned in and snatched the card stock paper out of Taehyung's hand.

"Hey!" Taehyung's brows furrowed, and he attempted to grab it from him, but Yoongi managed to keep it just out of his reach.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" Yoongi smirked as he read over the contents of the paper.

"Yoongi!"

"My goodness!" he gaped, and his smirk only widened into his signature gummy grin, when he realized, "it seems that someone has a little crush on our good friend, and dear class president, Jeongguk Jeon!"

Jimin tilted his head at the older man, as if to say that he shouldn't be prying into Taehyung's business like that. "Yoongi--"

" _And_ what kind of sizzling erotica might our Taehyung be capable of imagining? I wonder..."

Yoongi's gaze met Taehyung's then, who had to make the split decision whether to **insist that Yoongi give the paper back or explain that he was with Jeongguk now**.

Then--having decided against keeping their relationship a secret--the youngest of the three of them appeared somewhat nervous, when he proceeded to explain that, "Jeongguk and Emily split, and... we're together."

🦋

"Oh..." Yoongi's smile fell, and he and Jimin both pursed their lips in response, as they knew that Emily, wherever she was, wasn't going to be too thrilled about her ex-boyfriend getting with one of their close friends; Though, they both simultaneously figured Emily didn't really have much room to talk, considering she started dating Namjoon _long_ before Jeongguk & Taehyung officially became an item. "Drama."

"Not really," Taehyung shrugged. "Pretty clear cut, actually; Em's out, I'm in."

"Huh," Jimin nodded understandingly, despite his indifference about the situation, but he knew it wasn't any of his business, so he decided to simply let it go, until it would inevitably begin to cause problems for the rest of them.

With that, Taehyung moved to snatch the paper out of Yoongi's hand, with a triumphant bounce of his brows.

"Alright, alright," Yoongi gave in. "Let's just get up to the lodge already. I'm getting tired of all this _nature_ 'n junk."

"Uh... you guys go ahead," Taehyung encouraged them along. "I'm just gonna wait here for a bit--see who else is coming."

"You mean _Jeongguk_?" Yoongi light-heartedly teased him.

"What?" Tae raised a brow, before he quickly played it off, "I mean, you know... _whoever_."

"Uh huh. Jimin?" Yoongi called him, as the man had taken to staring out upon the view of the Blackwood Mountain valley.

"Do you see this view? I mean, _holy shit_..." Jimin breathed in amazement. "Sometimes, I forget to just _stop_ and take it all in..."

**\---**

"Seriously, couldn't they have built the lodge, like _right_ where the cable car ends?" Emily complained--as she was often one to do--to her boyfriend, Namjoon, as she led him through the gate of the property that surrounded the Kim family lodge.

"I don't think it would've been, like as _pretty_ , you know?" Namjoon shrugged at that while he carried all of their luggage in both of his hands.

"And where's the bellboy when you need one?" she shook her head in annoyance and, as she led him over a bridge that allowed them to cross over the creek that ran beneath it, she added, "I'm getting chills."

"We're almost there," Namjoon assured her, assuming she meant that she was cold.

"No, I mean I'm getting creeped out," Emily clarified. 

"Oh. Yeah."

"It's gonna be weird, seeing everyone up here again."

"Definitely not gonna feel like a regular party," Namjoon nodded in agreement. "What do you think--?"

"AHH!!"

As Emily shrieked, Namjoon immediately dropped their bags and raised his fists, in their defense against whoever or whatever it was that had just popped out of seemingly nowhere.

" _Jesus_!!" Emily's brows furrowed angrily upon the realization that it was just Jeongguk. Her ex stood before them on the bridge, clapping like a seal and doubling over in an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

"You guys--"

" _Jeongguk_!" Emily scolded him, but he just carried on laughing, like it was the funniest thing he'd seen in a while--because it was.

"You really, really should've seen your faces!"

"Dude, I almost clocked you just now," Namjoon shook his head at the younger man. "Nice one."

"Jeongguk, you're a jerk," Emily pouted.

"What? Come on, guys. We're all friends here, right? There's no need for violence. It's just a little harmless fun," he said in his defense. "We're up in the woods, it's spooky..." he listed off a few excuses, "come on. Let's get into the spirit of things."

"The _spirit of things_? _Seriously_? What's _wrong_ with you?" Emily muttered.

Jeongguk scoffed incredulously at that, "I was just trying to lighten the mood, Em. Don't be like that."

"Like what?"

Jeongguk rolled his eyes, "the way you're being. You always get like this."

Namjoon's jaw set tight in annoyance, and he had the choice to either **tell Jeongguk to back off or welcome him back with open arms** , so he calmly chose to warn him against picking fights with his girlfriend.

🦋

"Jeongguk, you gotta step off. Emily and I are together now, and that's just the way it is... I'm not gonna tell you again. Do we understand each other?"

"Well, I thought maybe we could move past all this--be buds," Jeongguk replied passive-aggressively, "but yeah, fine," as he walked straight between them to reach the other side of the bridge.

"Jeongguk--" Emily started, but he waved it off.

"No, no, it's totally cool," Jeongguk said. "I'm just gonna head down the road--be all mature and shit by myself, over here. Peace!" he chucked up a peace sign and promptly carried on about his business.

"I think he got the message," Namjoon told Emily once the younger man was out of earshot.

She just smirked in response, "you're kinda hot when you get all Alpha, you know that?" which earned a playful smirk from her boyfriend, as he moved to lift their luggage once more. 

"Oh, _crap_ ," Emily suddenly sighed, as if she'd forgotten something along the way.

"What?"

"Hey, could you take these the rest of the way?" she asked him hopefully.

"The bags?"

"Yeah... all the bags?"

"Uh... why?" Namjoon asked her curiously.

"I need to go find Jimin," Emily quickly made an excuse, which caused Namjoon to raise a brow in suspicion.

"Okay...?"

"I'm sorry, I just--I really need to go find him. I totally forgot that I needed to talk to him, before we get all the way up there."

"This really can't wait?" Namjoon asked, before he gestured to the faint glow of the lodge lights, that could be seen through the trunks of the trees in front of them. "We're almost there."

"It's important," she gave him the puppy dog eyes--something she knew he would be a sucker for, every single time, "Joonie, _please_."

Given the choice to either **allow her to go it alone or insist that she take him with** , Namjoon easily decided on the latter.

"Em, I really don't think you should head back down the trail by yourself."

🦋

"Seriously?"

"It's cold out and it's getting dark..." he gave a few excuses, mostly as a way to distract himself from the nagging feeling in his mind, that Emily was _actually_ about to go follow her ex.

"You're gonna protect me from it being dark out?" Emily asked him rhetorically.

"I'll just leave our stuff here and come with you. Nobody's gonna steal it."

"Namjoon, are you kidding me? You can't leave me alone for five minutes? You really think that little of me?" she gaslighted him, just as she used to gaslight Jeongguk.

"That's not what I meant--"

"Why can't you just listen to me? Why do you have to question everything I say?"

"I'm sorry, Em. I'm just trying to be helpful--"

"If you wanna be helpful, then you can help get everything up to the lodge as quickly as you can, okay?"

"I..." Namjoon wanted to protest, but he suddenly felt like a lingering shadow, obsessively following his girlfriend around, what with the way she spoke to him just then. "Okay..." he reluctantly gave in. "Fine."

"Thank you," Emily replied as he reached for their bags. "I'll see you up there after I find Jimin."

"See you in a bit," he bid her, and with that, they parted ways; Namjoon toward the lodge and Emily toward the cable car station.

**\---**

"Whoa... hello."

Having unintentionally encroached upon the sight of Jeongguk & Emily, speaking with one another privately in a secluded area of the woods, Hoseok felt sort of nosey for keeping his focus set on the pair, but his conscience wouldn't allow him to look away.

After he spotted them, through the tower viewer near the front half of the lodge, Hoseok raised a suspicious brow.

Namjoon was his friend, and even if he wasn't as close to the guy as he was to Yoongi & Jimin, Hoseok still felt like it was his responsibility in that moment to keep an eye on the exes, just to be sure that there wasn't going to be any sort of rekindling of their dead romance.

"Somebody's getting a little friendly. Think they may need to check the expiration date on their big breakup," he muttered while he watched the pair hug for a moment, but other than that, he hadn't seen anything that would be worthy of raising any concern over.

Especially once Namjoon's face suddenly blocked the view of the grounded binoculars, causing Hoseok to shout, out of fear.

"Oh, my God!!" he panted while Namjoon just chuckled to himself in amusement.

"Sorry about that, H," he apologized. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"Jeez, Namjoon..."

"Well--I _did_ mean to scare you-- _sort of_ scare you, but not _for real_ scare you."

"Oh, my gosh," Hoseok grumbled under his breath while he smacked the older man's solid chest.

"Man, I'm sorry, Hoseok," Namjoon said, but he was still smiling, "damn."

"It's okay. It's fine," he rolled his eyes in response, but a smile crept onto his face as well because he was never really one to hold a grudge.

"What're you looking at?" Namjoon inquired with a flippant gesture to the tower viewer. "See anything juicy with that thing? Let me check it out."

"Uh--" Hoseok had to decide on the spot, whether to **encourage Namjoon to take a look or mislead him into thinking the viewer was broken**. "I mean, sure, uh--go ahead. Knock yourself out, I guess," he told him with an awkward purse of his lips.

🦋

"Okay," Namjoon leaned in to look through the binoculars then and, upon spotting his girlfriend and her ex, talking and laughing it up through the trees, he quietly cursed to himself. "Son of a _bitch_! Seriously, Emily? What the hell, man?"

"Hey, listen, it's probably nothing--" Hoseok attempted to console him.

"Nothing?" Namjoon asked incredulously. "You think?"

"Well--"

"Is it ever just _nothing_ with Em? _Ever_?"

"I don't know, I--"

"Damn it!" Namjoon pushed himself away from the viewer with a huff, and Hoseok felt bad for being the bearer of bad news, but he knew he would've felt even worse if he would've just let Namjoon go through their entire vacation in blissful oblivion.

"Namjoon..." Hoseok called out to him when he began to trudge his way through the snow, but he just sighed to himself and quietly followed along, when the man kept walking without another word.

**\---**

After waiting near the cable car station, for what'd felt like forever, Taehyung glanced down at his phone and part of him was tempted to text Jeongguk, in order to ask him for an ETA. However, he quickly disregarded that thought when he was easily surprised by the sudden thud of a ball of snow hitting the wall of the station, directly beside his head.

Taehyung quickly searched for the pitcher, and his boxy smile instantly grew at the sight of his boyfriend, who was standing beneath the gentle snowfall just a few yards in front of him.

"Oh, you did _not_ just do that!" Taehyung giggled.

"Put your hands where I can see 'em," Jeongguk playfully commanded while he knelt down to form another snowball on the ground. "We've got you surrounded."

"Well, who am I to retaliate?" Taehyung played along by innocently holding his hands up, "what choice do I--a supple young rebel--have, but to surrender to the strapping military guard that's come to take me into custody?"

"I dunno," Jeongguk smirked, "but when you put it like that--Hey!" he cut himself off when Taehyung suddenly bolted, from the station over to the cover of a nearby tree, and began to form a snowball of his own.

Then, he peaked his head around the trunk and aimed for the side of Jeongguk's head, which he easily clocked with the powdery ball of snow in the next instant.

"Ah!" Jeongguk shouted out of surprise, but his smile widened as well, just as his eyes became alight with mischief. "You're gonna pay, you know that?" he laughed while Taehyung quickly hid away from view, in order to gather up a few more snowballs to pelt him with. 

"Where are you hiding, little chickadee?" Jeongguk singsonged while he slowly approached the tree his boyfriend was hidden behind.

With that, Taehyung poked his head out once more and shouted, "bullseye!" after he'd successfully managed to coat Jeongguk's chest in a layer of quickly-melting snow.

Then, as he ran from the tree to find another hiding spot, Jeongguk hurled a snowball toward him, but as Taehyung glanced over his shoulder in the same second, he was quickly able to duck out of the way and avoid being hit.

Jeongguk groaned in defeat after missing his target, but as he sprinted away from Taehyung while he wound up his next shot, Jeongguk grew even louder upon being hit _again_.

"Ahh!" Jeongguk laughed as he stumbled a bit with the force of it. "Okay, no, you got me! Fair enough!" he gave Taehyung all the credit for the first few hits, but Jeongguk was determined to get him back _at least_ once.

"You can't hide from me, Jeongguk," Taehyung told him, after he watched Jeongguk take his previous spot behind the tree. "I know all your tricks!" 

Then, Jeongguk peaked his head out to reply, and immediately got a face full of snow.

"I'm gonna get you, Tae," he grumbled, as he wiped it off on the back of his glove, with a darkness in his eyes that had Taehyung's brows bouncing challengingly.

"And then what?" he prompted, before he sprinted straight for Jeongguk, who turned to run away and hide again. "No more!" Taehyung called out when Jeongguk disappeared, and he kept a wary eye out for a moment, before he was suddenly being tackled to the ground from behind.

"Gotcha!" Jeongguk chirped and Taehyung was quick to roll onto his back beneath the younger man. "You're done! Done city!" Jeongguk declared, as he now lay between his boyfriend's legs, with his gloves in the snow at either side of Taehyung's head.

"So did I go down?" he smirked in response.

"Uh, no, I don't think so."

Taehyung giggled while he walked his fingertips up the center of Jeongguk's brawny chest. "I think you'd know so, if I did," he winked. "So are we calling it my favor then?"

"You're a worthy opponent, Taehyung, the Snowball King."

"Okay, that sounds _vaguely_ dirty--" Taehyung joked, before Jeongguk leaned in to kiss him, earning a contented hum from him in return. 

"Wow..." Taehyung's cheeks flushed pink when Jeongguk finally pulled away. "Save some for later, buddy."

"Endless reserves," Jeongguk promised him. Then, after he finally realized that it had gotten significantly darker outside, he reluctantly told Taehyung, "we should get up to the lodge."

"Yeah. It's so nice out here, though..." Taehyung agreed as he fondly caressed his boyfriend's face. "Pretty breathtaking..."

So Jeongguk pecked his lips once more, before he reached for Taehyung's hand and moved to help him back up onto his feet. "I mean, I could stay out here--for pretty much _ever_ \--provided I was making out with you the whole time."

" _Just_ making out?" Taehyung raised a tempting brow at that, and Jeongguk's lips subconsciously parted in wonder, at how suggestive Tae was being in that moment.

"Quote, unquote," Jeongguk playfully shrugged.

"Well, I think we might freeze to death, somewhere in between those quotes."

"Yeah."


	4. 🦋TWO - JEALOUSY🐍

**[JEALOUSY - 9 HOURS UNTIL DAWN]**

"Man, I feel like this mountain gets bigger every time I climb it!"

"Oh, yeah?" Seokjin rhetorically hummed in amusement at Yoongi's statement. "Feels the same to me," he shrugged.

"Oh, come on. You _grew up_ here," Yoongi shook his head at his friend's response. "It probably feels like it's shrinking."

"I guess that's true," Seokjin shrugged once more.

"And when are you gonna install some cell towers up here?" Yoongi asked only half-jokingly. "I'm getting withdrawals already."

"If you got a spare million lying around, I'll fix you right up," Jin teased his friend as they approached the front door of the lodge, where Namjoon, Hoseok, and Jimin stood, patiently waiting on the steps for the owner's arrival.

"Funny you should say that," Yoongi replied. "I think I left it in my other jacket."

"Oops," Jin smirked at that. Then, once they finally joined their friends by the door, he greeted them with a casual, "hey, guys. Get up here okay?"

"Yeah!" Hoseok answered with a beaming grin, as he'd been eagerly awaiting everyone else's arrival, given the way Namjoon had been sulking ever since he discovered that Emily lied to him. 

"Well..." Hoseok spared a glance over at the brooding older man in question, "more or less... but it's so good to see you!"

Seokjin offered him a warm-hearted smile, until he recognized the look of irritation on Namjoon's face, and he turned his head to discreetly ask Jimin & Yoongi, "what's up with him?"

They both shrugged, and Namjoon just sighed to himself, before Seokjin began to lead the way up to the door.

"Yo, are we gonna get things moving up here or what?" Yoongi clapped Jin on the shoulder.

"Yeah, man."

Then, Yoongi decided to **ask his friend how he was feeling** ,rather than **gossip about the drama going on between Namjoon & Emily.**

🦋

"Hey..." Yoongi let his hand reside on Jin's shoulder for a moment. "You doin' alright? I mean, I know it must be really tough without y--"

"Stop," Jin shook his head simply.

"I just meant that--"

"No, I know what you meant," he assured him. "You know, seriously, I'm over it... and I just want us to have a good time. Okay? Like we always used to."

Yoongi nodded understandingly, so Jin moved to unlock the door, but the key wouldn't insert.

"Damn it... this frickin' thing."

"It's iced?" Yoongi guessed.

"What else?"

"Maybe there's another way in."

"There are a million ways in. They're just all locked," Seokjin replied, and he momentarily tried to pick away at the ice with the end of the key, before he decided the task was too tedious.

"There's gotta be, like a window around the corner we can... you know, "get open" or something."

"Wait a second. Are you saying we should break in?"

"I don't think it's technically breaking in, if you own the place, right?" Yoongi chuckled.

"Hey. Not if I don't _report you_ ," Jin jokingly leaned in toward him, before he gestured toward the stairs behind Yoongi. "Lead the way, Cochise," he said, so Yoongi turned to descend the staircase once more where Hoseok still sat, beside Jimin, at the bottom of the steps.

"Hey, Hobi," he greeted him with a sheepish grin.

"Hi, Yoongi," Hoseok's face instantly lit up from the bored expression he'd been wearing before.

Yoongi really didn't want to watch the smile leave Hoseok's face, so he chose to **confidently ask how he was feeling** , rather than **talk about how unsettling it was to be back** on the mountain, after everything that happened the year before.

"How you doing?"

🦋

"Eh... good," Hoseok decided was a decent enough answer. "But a little cold..." he admitted. "Think I could use some time curled up by the fire."

"Yeah," Yoongi nodded, somewhat in a daze at the thought of cuddling up with the younger man to warm him up. "That does sound pretty nice..."

"Yeah..."

" _Ahem_ ," Seokjin cleared his throat, snapping the pair out of their trance, before he gestured for Yoongi to follow him, which he did.

Then, as Jin led the way over to the side of the lodge, he teasingly told Yoongi, "Hoseok's looking pretty hot tonight, right? I just want to rip that parka right off him and make some snow angels."

Instead of choosing to **agree with the way Jin spoke about Hoseok** , Yoongi stopped in the middle of the trail and shook his head, in a **protest against the idea**.

"Hey. Cut it out, man."

🦋

"I mean, if you're not gonna bang him, maybe Jeongguk'll take up the case," Seokjin smirked at his friend's predictable reaction.

"Wha--Will you back off already?" Yoongi's confidence dropped a bit, at the thought of Hoseok ending up with someone else, should he fail to finally buck up the courage and admit his feelings for him this year.

"Relaaax," Jin placed his hands on Yoongi's shoulders, in order to straighten him up, after he seemed to visibly deflate. "I'm just checking to see if there's some blood flowin' down there," he gestured to Yoongi's crotch with a quick glance downward.

Yoongi scoffed quietly. "Yeah," he said, but he quickly lightened up in the company of his closest friend.

"Listen, dude; Look around you. Look at these beautiful mountains," Jin gestured vaguely to the wintry scenery that surrounded them.

So Yoongi took a second to take it all in, momentarily recalling the look of amazement on Jimin's face from earlier in the night, as he stared upon the Blackwood Mountain valley.

"Do you see any parents? I mean, can you imagine a more _perfect_ , _ripe_ scenario, just _dripping_ with erotic possibilities?" Jin continued, catching Yoongi's attention once more.

"You and Hoseok--alone at last. You've laid all the groundwork. You've been a perfect gentleman. _Now_ , you come in for the kill!"

He could've chosen to **disagree with him** , and he laughed at Jin's wording as well, but he promptly decided to **agree with him** anyway.

"Maybe you're right," Yoongi shrugged simply.

🦋

"You're a hunter, bro. No fear. No mercy. I mean, he won't even know what hit him."

"Alright, alright. I got it. Jeez," Yoongi shook his head with another bubbly laugh, while Jin carried on down the path, and he turned to follow suit.

"So, how are we planning on breaking into my parents' lodge, bud?"

"Well, I didn't say I had a plan--"

"You _sounded_ like you had a plan," Jin jokingly argued with him. "You better deliver, Cochise, or else you got five lovely bachelors who are gonna be freezing their buns off, and last time I checked, that's _not_ a good way to get laid."

"Well, shoot. Nobody likes cold buns~" Yoongi said with a playful lilt to his voice, as they reached a set of windows at the side of the lodge, but his smile immediately fell when he took note of a wall-mounted axe holder--that _should've_ contained an axe, but _didn't_.

"You might be able to reach that window, if you climb this," Jin patted the snow-covered top of a metal workbench, that sat right against the brick siding of the room they used for storage, so Yoongi disregarded the axe in order to do so.

Fortunately, the window wasn't locked, so Yoongi was able to climb onto the workbench and lift it open from the outside, with ease.

Then, after climbing in headfirst--without really thinking it through--Yoongi fell flat onto his back on the cement floor, knocking the wind from his chest and causing him to cough.

"Agh... I'm okay," he groaned as he watched Jin's head immediately pop up within the frame of the window. "Should've paid more attention in climbing class..."

Seokjin raised a brow at that, "...you mean "gym"?"

"Yeah. You know, like the climbin' up the rope?" Yoongi pursed his lips with the slight twinge of pain he felt upon sitting up, and upon standing, the bulb of the ceiling light suddenly burst.

"Whoa..." Jin breathed.

"Did I do that?" Yoongi asked in confusion.

"I-I don't think so?" Jin answered, seeming just as confused, before he reached into his pocket and retrieved a lighter for him to use. "Here. Use this," he dropped it down to Yoongi, who easily caught it, before he flicked the wheel and ignited a tiny flame in the space before him.

As the glow of the fire illuminated Yoongi's face in the darkness, Seokjin's lips suddenly parted because, "whoa--Yoongi, I just got an awesome idea!"

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Okay, so I'm pretty sure that I've got some deodorant in one of the bathrooms," Jin told him. "You could use _that_ with the _lighter_."

"I don't--I don't follow. How's a stick of deodorant gonna help?"

"Spray-on," Jin replied. "It's a can."

"Ohh, okay, yeah. Now I gotcha," Yoongi nodded in agreement with the idea.

"Flamethrower!"

"Just like we used to do with the lil' army dudes!"

"Yup, the ones we melted," Jin laughed around the nostalgic feeling in his heart, upon recalling such an early memory with his best friend. "Just point the spray-can at the lighter and _whoosh_."

"Bye-bye, frozen lock," Yoongi tapped his temple, as if to silently praise Jin for his clever mind.

"Bingo. Alright, so you got this," Seokjin encouraged him to carry on without him. "I'm gonna go sort something out. You up for hunting around in the dark for a little bit?"

"Nope, but I'll do it," Yoongi sighed to himself, while he momentarily glanced around the storage room, with the lighter raised out in front of him.

"Godspeed, Yoongles," Jin saluted him with two fingers, before he hopped down from the frosty workbench, leaving Yoongi to it.

So Yoongi wandered throughout the room, cursing to himself whenever he'd bump into something and his heart would begin to race, but he willed himself to relax and focus on the task at hand, rather than give in to his anxious feelings about the darkness surrounding him.

He found a doorknob and, having assumed that it would lead him into the foyer, Yoongi walked through the door, only to discover that it was just a smaller supply closet.

Then, he just sighed to himself and turned to leave, before the bold-lettered headline of a newspaper suddenly caught his eye, from where it rested on one of the shelves by the door.

**EX-JANITOR CONVICTED FOR ARSON**   
**SWEARS REVENGE ON MOVIE MOGUL'S FAMILY**

However, given that the lower portion of the paper had been torn away from it, Yoongi was unable to gather any real context clues, so he dropped the paper and carried on about his business.

After finally locating the exit, Yoongi wandered down the length of the hallway into the foyer, where he ascended the staircase in the center of the area, in order to reach the bathroom upstairs.

Then, upon finding the spray-on deodorant Jin had mentioned, he jogged back down the steps and over to the front door, where the silhouettes of both Jimin & Hoseok could be seen waiting on the other side.

"Finally!" Jimin cheered when he spotted Yoongi's blurry figure through the privacy glass.

"We're freezing our asses off out here!" Hoseok encouraged Yoongi to hurry along, so he held the light out in front of him, and sprayed the deodorant onto the flame.

With a brief roar of the steady stream of fire, Yoongi managed to melt the ice away from the knob--as well as the area where the door latched shut--before he extinguished the flame, by releasing his hold on the top of the deodorant can and removing his thumb from the lighter.

"Ah--" Yoongi hissed and attempted to shake the pain from his hand, after he immediately reached for the searing hot handle to open the door, without really thinking it through. "Thank you, thank you," he jokingly bowed to Jimin & Hoseok, who stared back at him with matching looks of amusement. "I'll be here all week."

"Don't worry, buddy; You're gonna be a big boy soon," Jin jokingly assured him, as he suddenly came jogging up the front steps, behind the pair that were standing on the porch.

Yoongi just rolled his eyes at that, before he turned to lead the rest of them inside.

"Home sweet home!" Seokjin called out into the spacious foyer.

" _Sweet_ is not the word I'd use..." Namjoon said under his breath, once he was finally able to set all of his & Emily's luggage down.

"Oh, my gosh, it's so good to be inside," Hoseok sighed happily, as Jimin quietly shivered at his side. "Even if it's still kinda freezing in here..."

"I'll get a fire going," Jin told them, to which he moved toward the fireplace in order to do so.

"This place barely looks any different," Namjoon thought aloud then.

"Yeah, nobody's been up here."

"Even with all the police coming in and out?" Hoseok asked curiously, as Yoongi absentmindedly began to follow him deeper into the main room.

"Not a lot of action up here, lately," Yoongi told him, earning a fond smile from Hoseok in return, once he realized that Yoongi was beginning to hover--not that he minded that--not one bit.

"What's up, party people?!" Jeongguk's voice suddenly echoed throughout the lodge, gaining the attention of everyone present and causing Taehyung to shake his head in amusement, as he followed his boyfriend inside.

"Heeey~!" Taehyung offered everyone a chipper wiggle of his fingertips.

"Hey!" Seokjin greeted them. "Make yourselves at home!"

"Will do!" Jeongguk pointed to his friend with a smirk, which simultaneously had Namjoon's blood boiling beneath his skin.

"Yeah, come on in. Take a load off," Namjoon gave Jeongguk a fake, pursed-lipped smile, as he joined him near Jin at the fireplace. "Have whatever you want. You just take whatever you want anyways, _right_?"

"Whoa. Easy there, cowboy," Jeongguk's brows furrowed in confusion at the way the older man suddenly confronted him, which only proved to irritate Namjoon even further.

Then, provided the opportunity to either **warn Jeongguk away from Emily** **again or** **admit that he saw them together** , Namjoon went with the latter.

🦋

"What the hell were you doing with Em, out on the trail?" he asked him bluntly, wasting absolutely no time in beating around the bush. "Huh?"

"What?"

"I saw you and Em," he clarified, "through the telescope."

"We just ran into each other," Jeongguk brushed it off. "It'd been a while, so we hugged, and I said hello... is that against the law?"

Part of Namjoon wanted to **apologize** **to Jeongguk** , and admit that he may have just been overreacting, but the rest of him chose to **distrust Jeongguk** instead.

🦋

"Right, right. I'm sure that's all it was," Namjoon replied sarcastically, through his teeth.

"You know what?" Jeongguk scoffed at that. "You can think whatever you want. It's a free country," he decided simply.

"Watch yourself, Jeongguk," Namjoon muttered, before he turned to take a seat on one of the couches in front of the fire.

On the opposite couch, Taehyung sat with awkwardly pursed lips while he watched the scene unfold, before he patted the spot beside him to encourage Jeongguk to take a seat.

So he did, and he wrapped an arm around Taehyung's shoulders, which earned Jeongguk a quick peck from his boyfriend, all before Emily finally entered the lodge with a roll of her eyes.

"Oh, my God," she laughed at the sight of the pair, cuddling up together on the loveseat. "That is _so_ gross. Are you _trying_ to swallow his face whole?"

"Em--" Namjoon attempted to keep her from making the situation escalate even further, but Emily was never one to allow a man to tell her what to do--or _anybody_ , for that matter.

"Seriously. Can he be any more obvious?" she shook her head at Taehyung in disbelief. "No one wants in on your territory, honey."

"Excuse me?" Taehyung tilted his head, as if he couldn't understand her. "Did you say something?"

"Oh, did you not hear me? Was your sluttiness too loud?"

"Sounds like someone's just bitter she didn't make the cut," Taehyung easily let the comment roll off his back while he stood from his seat on the couch.

"Yeah. It's all a big cattle call with _that_ dreamboat," Emily gestured flippantly toward Jeongguk, whose tongue habitually pressed against his cheek in annoyance. "Congrats! You're top cow!"

"Cuts real deep--calling the _Prom King_ a cow," Taehyung laughed at her childish insult.

After quickly deciding whether to **chastise Taehyung** **or** **tell Emily to chill out** , Namjoon quickly stood from the couch and said, "Em, come on--"

🦋

"Shut up, Namjoon," she told him.

"Stay out of it," Taehyung added.

" _Hey_. _Watch it_ \--" Emily seethed.

"Oh, so you're the only one who can put him down?" Taehyung's brows raised. "No one else can play with your toys?"

"You're such a _dick_!"

"Like I give a shit what you think," Taehyung muttered on his way back over to Jeongguk, who honestly felt quite proud of Tae for standing up for himself--despite the fact that Jeongguk absolutely _despised_ drama--as Taehyung took a seat in his lap.

"At least I _can_ think. 4.0, bitch. Honor roll," Emily gestured to herself with a pointed thumb. "Suck on that when you're trying to sleep your way into a job."

"Who needs grades when you've got all of the natural advantages that you can handle?" Taehyung asked rhetorically, with a confident smirk.

"Oh, please--"

"You couldn't buy a _moldy loaf of bread_ with your skanky ass."

"Are you serious? Do you think that's insulting?" Emily laughed at that.

Taehyung just rolled his eyes. "This bitch is on crack or something."

"Emily, _stop_ ," Namjoon sternly chose to **tell Emily to back off again** , rather than **chastise Taehyung** ,and despite nearly picking a fight with Jeongguk only moments ago, he said, "this is out of hand. There's no reason to fight like this."

🦋

"Yeah, Em. Why're you picking fights over your ex-boyfriend?" Taehyung tilted his head once more, with that same smirk still playing on his plump lips. "Huh?"

"Stop it!" Seokjin's voice sounded above all the rest, when he stood upright again. "This is _not_ why we came up here. This is _not_ helping. It's not what I wanted."

Then, the room submissively fell silent, so he continued.

"If we can't get along for ten minutes, then maybe we need a little bit of a break. Right?"

He looked down at Jeongguk & Taehyung then. "Guk, why don't you check out the guest cabin? The one I told you about."

"Yeah... yeah, alright," Jeongguk nodded in agreement. "Wanna go do that?" he asked Taehyung with a gentle pat to his thighs.

"Any place without _that_ bitch," Taehyung muttered, as he stood from Jeongguk's lap and gave Emily a sly once over.

Then, Seokjin sighed to himself, but told them, "it's right up the trail," before they joined hands and made their way over to the front door.

"Glad that's over," Namjoon sighed as well, when he turned to face Jin, who had returned to the fireplace. "So, Jin--"

"Where's my bag?" Emily interrupted from the side of the room, where Namjoon had set their luggage.

"Huh?"

"My bag! The little bag with the pink pattern? The one I got on Rodeo?" she tried to jog his memory, but with the blank expression on Namjoon's face, as he tried to recall the bag she spoke of, she added, "Namjoon, are you listening?? Oh, my God. Don't you remember? Next to the Italian shoe place, where _I_ got the stilettos, and _you_ knocked over the rack while you were drooling all over that girl at the counter?"

"Wha--I mean, she was just asking me about my letter jacket--"

" _Right_ because she gave a shit about your _"designer" letter jacket._ "

"Why do you hate my jacket?"

" _Joonie_! _I need my bag_!" she raised her voice at him, so Namjoon finally snapped back.

" _Oh, my God, Em_! Maybe you just forgot it--"

"Do you _seriously_ think I'd forget my bag??"

"Well, I--"

" _Do you_?!"

Namjoon's jaw set tight then, as he refused to continue arguing with her about such pointless things.

"Guess not."

"You must've left it down by the cable car station. Come on, hun, we'll be back soon," Emily said, to which Namjoon audibly sighed, but she seemed to be calming down at least, so Namjoon followed her over to the front door.

"And then we can get warm?" he asked hopefully.

"We can get _very_ warm," she promised.

"Okay," Namjoon nodded. "Okay, let's go."

"Alright..." Jimin awkwardly clasped his hands together, from where he'd been watching the dramatic scene unfold from the bottom of the stairs. "I'm gonna go take a bath," he told Seokjin, who was the only one left in the main area at that point.

**\---**

Jeongguk sighed to himself, as he followed Taehyung back outside into the snowfall, which was coming down a bit heavier now.

"Exiled," he thought aloud.

" _Sex_ -iled," Taehyung playfully corrected him, as he led the way down the steps and back onto the main trail of Blackwood Pines.

"Works for me," Jeongguk shrugged, while Taehyung shivered from the freezing temperature of the wind that nipped at his skin.

"How far is this " _cabin_ " anyway?" Taehyung asked Jeongguk, having never been to any other part of the property--aside from the main lodge--in the past.

"This " _cabin_ " is the coziest, most romantic love den you will _ever_ lay your eyes upon," Jeongguk assured him and, as they walked, he moved to wrap his arms around Taehyung's waist from behind.

"If we ever _make it_ ," Taehyung joked.

"Oh, I have a feeling luck's on our side," Jeongguk pecked his cheek, before he let him go.

"Well, play your cards right and maybe _you_ will get lucky," Tae raked his teeth over his lower lip, and he reached for Jeongguk's hand, in order to keep up with him.

"Hey, porn stars!"

The couple immediately craned their heads back toward the cabin, to find Seokjin standing at the top of the steps, with a key ring dangling off his fingertip.

"You're gonna need these!" he underhand tossed the keys to Taehyung, who caught them with ease.

" _Porn stars_?"

"I'd pay to see it," Jin shrugged honestly.

"Gross," Taehyung laughed in response.

"Sorry to kick you out like that," Jin added sincerely, as he descended the steps.

"No worries, man," Jeongguk assured him.

"I'm sure you'll find a way to entertain yourselves," he winked.

"Mhm!" Taehyung smirked. "You have fun with the peanut gallery."

With that, Seokjin jokingly brought his fingertips up to his own temple, and pretended to blow his brains out.

"Oh! Almost forgot! You gotta fire up the generator, so you can see where you're going," he told Jeongguk, who nodded understandingly, before Jin added, "it's dark out there," and turned to go back inside.

"I think Jin was _flirting with me_ ~" Taehyung joked, mostly as a way to rile Jeongguk up, before they'd reach the cabin and, inevitably, pounce on each other the second they would finally be alone.

"Mkay," Jeongguk hummed, "you want to invite him up with us?"

Taehyung's playful expression instantly fell into one of surprise while he pocketed the key.

"Wait, _really_?"

So Jeongguk just laughed in response, before he seriously answered, "uh, _no_."

Then, after linking their gloved fingers together once more, Jeongguk led the way to the guest cabin--which turned out to be quite a bit further away than just "right up the trail."

Nevertheless, when Taehyung suddenly paused and asked, "hey, hot lips! Photo booth?" it was almost as if he'd read Jeongguk's mind, as the photographer within him had been captivated by the sight of his lover, standing before one of the several tourist view points along the trail.

"Read my mind," Jeongguk got his phone out and opened up his front-facing camera, before he moved to stand beside Taehyung in front of the breathtaking view of the snowy, moonlit valley.

He removed a glove and raised his phone up, so he could press the on-screen capture button, which resulted in a selfie of the couple that had Taehyung's face lighting up because, "this is _perfect_! We're the _cutest_ couple..."

Then, Jeongguk whistled at the sight of Taehyung's photogenic face beside his own.

"Damn," he smirked. "You should be a model."

"You keep that camera handy and maybe I'll let you start my portfolio," Taehyung shrugged, "at the _cabin_..."

"Oof," Jeongguk swallowed thickly at the idea of snapping lewd photos of his boyfriend while they fucked. "Noted."

"It's fucking _freezing_ out here!" Taehyung thought aloud, which snapped Jeongguk out of his daze, and urged him to get a move on down the trail as well.

"Now _that's_ something I can help you with."

"And how are you gonna do that?"

"I got a few things in mind," Jeongguk assured him, before he flicked on the flashlight of his phone, and aimed it toward a sign that hung sideways from the trunk of a tree.

**PRIVATE PROPERTY**   
**KIM ESTATE**

"Not a lot of TLC for this place anymore," Jeongguk noticed. "Kind of a bummer..."

"I'm sorry, Gukkie," Taehyung offered him a sympathetic frown, as he reached for the younger man's bicep with his free hand, in order to encourage him along toward an electric gate.

Then, in an attempt to change the depressing subject, Taehyung said, "Emily's dumb as fuck if she thinks she can cut in on what we got going on. Maybe if we're lucky, she'll try and follow us out here and get eaten by a bear."

Given the choice to **agree that Emily was out of line or defend Emily's honor** , Jeongguk easily agreed that she was out of line when he told Taehyung, "I think you bring out the worst in her."

🦋

"Is that so?"

" _Epic_ jealousy," Jeongguk nodded while he approached the rickety shed near the gate, where he promptly powered up the generator Jin told them about.

"Yeah, well, she can suck it," Taehyung decided.

Then, after noticing "police tape?" further along the path, he turned toward Jeongguk with a raised brow.

"From Hannah & Beth," Jeongguk nodded.

"You'd think they'd clean it up..." he thought aloud.

"Well, they never closed the investigation."

"Okay... I'm getting the creeps now," Taehyung pursed his lips, and given the chance to either **ask Taehyung what he remembered of the year before or respectfully give his condolences** , Jeongguk decided it was best not to pry.

🦋

"Well, wherever they are, I'm sure they're happy we're all thinking about them."

Taehyung nodded somberly. "That's a nice way of thinking about it," he mumbled among the guilty feeling in his chest whenever he was reminded of the year before.

Aside from Seokjin, who had been too drunk to be there for his sisters that night, Taehyung & Jeongguk felt they were the guiltiest of all of them. After all, it had been _their_ prank that sent Hannah out into the woods all alone.

However, they hadn't forced her to run away that night, either, and causing her any sort of physical harm was _never_ in their intentions.

It was all just a _really_ , _really_ , _stupid_ prank.

But there was nothing the two of them--or anyone else--could do to change what happened.

The past is beyond our control.

" _No way_ am I going back to the lodge, AKA _wax museum_ , to drink hot chocolate with Emily," Taehyung turned to face Jeongguk, as he approached an entrance of the abandoned, maze-like mines that ran underneath the mountain.

Jeongguk lagged a few feet behind with his flashlight, in order to study a group of fallen trees, that had blocked them from being able to walk the rest of the trail up to the cabin.

He thought it was a bit suspicious, that of allthe places along the path for there to be a blockage like this, it justso happenedto berightnext to the mouth of the mines.

However, as Taehyung could suddenly be heard shouting out of surprise from his right, Jeongguk immediately rushed into the mines to discover that he had fallen onto his ass, about one story down, upon the mine cart track below.

"Tae!" he called for him once he reached the edge of the wooden structure his boyfriend had fallen from.

"Yep! I'm okay!" Taehyung assured him, despite his sore backside, while he got to his feet and dusted himself off.

"Holy shit, you scared the hell out of me!" Jeongguk breathed a sigh of relief.

"How do you think I felt?!" Taehyung laughed at that.

"You didn't hit your head or anything, right?!"

"As far as I can tell, I still have all _five_ of my limbs!" Tae joked, earning a brief laugh from Jeongguk. "But I can hardly see anything down here!"

Given the choice to either **tell Taehyung to look for something useful or jump down and help him** , Jeongguk told him, "alright, I'm comin' for you, okay?! Just stay there!"

🦋

With that, Jeongguk placed a palm against the edge of the wood, before he quickly hopped down onto the cart track and aimed the flashlight toward Taehyung.

"Hey, handsome. You wanna help me move this thing?" he gestured toward the mine cart behind him, that blocked their way through, so Jeongguk moved to push it along the track with him.

With their combined strength, they managed to push the heavy cart a few feet forward, and out of their way.

"When I pictured us grunting together, let me tell you, that was _not_ what I had in mind," Jeongguk panted with Taehyung for a moment, who smirked in response, before he began to lead the younger man deeper into the mines.

Jeongguk followed Taehyung _several_ feet down the length of the cart track, before they were finally met with _several_ flights of stairs, at the top of which, a wooden beam suddenly came crashing down from the ceiling.

Had Jeongguk not instinctively reached for Taehyung's arm to pull him back, upon hearing the creaking sound of the collapsing wood, he surely would've been crushed.

"Jesus! Are you alright?" Jeongguk cupped Taehyung's fearful face in concern.

"Y-Yeah... that was a close call."

"Yeah..." Jeongguk agreed, and while he pulled his boyfriend in for a comforting hug, he aimed his flashlight toward the ceiling and sighed, "this place is _definitely_ not looking up to code."

So Taehyung momentarily cherished the feeling of Jeongguk's quickly beating heart against his cheek and said, "yeah. Let's get out of here."

Luckily, they'd already braved the majority of the tunnel and, much to their relief, they were met with a sign that directed them toward the guest cabin.

" _Finally_... a little ray of hope," Taehyung thought aloud, to which he reached for Jeongguk's hand and began to lead him the rest of the way up to said cabin.

Though, it would seem that he spoke a bit too soon, as the second they rounded a bend in the trail, an injured buck could be seen lying in the snow, helplessly writhing in pain.

"Damn..." Jeongguk crouched down beside it to assess several deep gashes that ran along its neck. "I don't think it's gonna make it..."

"This is so horrible..." Taehyung hid his frowning mouth behind his hand, as he watched his boyfriend lower onto his knees and slowly reach out to comfort the deer, by petting the top of its head that lazily lifted off the ground.

"Hey, buddy," Jeongguk cooed softly, "it's okay... we're right here with you."

"Oh, Jeonggukkie, it's in so much pain," Taehyung's eyes welled with tears, as he helplessly began to wonder if Hannah & Beth had felt any sort of pain when they passed.

Was it quick and painless? Or was it slow and agonizing?

"It'll be over soon," Jeongguk sadly assured him.

Then, as the deer took its final breath and expired beneath Jeongguk's touch, Taehyung found himself thinking he didn't want to know, before something suddenly snatched the deer's corpse from the ground and took off with a shriek, seemingly in the blink of an eye.

Both of them screamed out of fear, before the adrenaline finally kicked in, and they bolted down the pathway toward the cabin.

" _RUN_!! _RUN_!!"

"OH, MY GOD!! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" Taehyung screamed, as he sprinted uphill toward a small bridge that had been broken.

"I DON'T KNOW!!" Jeongguk sprinted after him.

"THERE'S A BRIDGE!!" Taehyung warned him, as he jumped the gap, and when Jeongguk momentarily stumbled as he lost his footing at the edge of it, Taehyung stopped and worriedly shouted, "JEONGGUK, _GET OVER HERE_!!"

Once Jeongguk hopped the gap, Tae grabbed his hand, and as they ran together, he said, "it's a bear!! It's gotta be a bear!!"

"Oh, fuck!! Look!!" Taehyung pointed up ahead as he brought Jeongguk to a sudden halt.

The pathway before them forked off.

They could either climb the short wall of boulders ahead of them-- **risk the shortcut** \--ortake a left and **follow the path**.

Jeongguk immediately led Taehyung up to the wall, knowing that they had it in them to be able to scale something as mildly inconveniencing as this, considering they _all_ had to scale the stone wall at the bottom of the mountain, since the gate was busted.

🦋

Then, much to their relief, they were met with the sight of the guest cabin, after they finally dropped to the other side.

When they reached the door, Taehyung quickly unlocked it in order to let them inside and, after Jeongguk leaned against the door that he quickly shut and locked behind himself, Taehyung immediately doubled over to catch his breath.

"Oh, my _God_ , that was close!"

"Nah. We totally had it under control," Jeongguk attempted to lighten the mood, "the whole time."

"Bullshit," Taehyung chuckled breathlessly.

"Nah, we gave it a hundred percent--a hundred and _ten_ percent."

"Holy fuck, I feel like I just ran a marathon..."

"I think we just might've," Jeongguk bounced his brows at that.

"Was it really a bear?" Taehyung wanted to be sure of it, as he moved to look out at the surrounding area, through the window.

"Yeah. Gotta be," Jeongguk answered. "Things are crazy fast."

"I mean, I didn't _see_ it..."

"Hey," Jeongguk walked over, placed his hands on Taehyung's shoulders, and gently squeezed. "It's not gonna come barging in. I promise."

"How can you be so sure?" Taehyung turned to face him then.

"Well, I'm pretty sure bears don't know how to open cabin doors."

"I've seen them open _car_ doors."

"What? Where?" Jeongguk raised a brow at that, to which Taehyung's cheeks flushed pink in embarrassment.

"On the internet..." he admitted.

"Really?" Jeongguk hummed in amusement. "Well, this isn't the internet, Tae. Alright? This is real life... and I promise you that no _bear_ , or _anything else_ , is gonna open that cabin door," he kissed the end of Taehyung's nose, before he turned to look around the darkness of the cabin with his phone's light.

"Okay... I guess you're right," Taehyung sighed. "I'm almost feeling relaxed again-- _almost_."

Then, as he moved to try the light switch, only to find that they didn't work, Taehyung muttered, "typical. This is _not_ the cozy chalet I was promised, Jeongguk."

"Yeah, it's a bit drafty or something, right?"

"There's a fireplace," Taehyung pointed out, as he sat on the couch in front of it.

"Well, I don't think we need a _fire_ to heat things up," Jeongguk joked in response while he slowly approached his boyfriend from behind.

"Well, I'd really like to cuddle up with my man, by a nice cozy fire, bathed in atmospheric mood lighting."

"It'll get real toasty once I'm lying on top of you," he whispered in Taehyung's ear, after he dipped his head down to press gentle kisses along his neck.

"Jeongguk."

"Yeah?"

"Fire and mood lighting."

"Yes, sir," Jeongguk chuckled.

But before he could get too far, Taehyung quickly patted his front pockets, before he stood from the couch to feel the back ones and said, "oh, _shit_... Jeongguk? _Fuck_."

"What?"

"It's gone."

"What's gone??"

"My _phone_ , Sherlock!" Taehyung stressfully ran his hand through his hair. "I must've dropped it outside."

"Ah, shit..." Jeongguk awkwardly scratched at his nape, as Taehyung searched the room for any sign of the device, but to no avail. "You can always get a new one."

"That's like my fourth one this year..." Taehyung admitted with a self-deprecating pout.

"Okay, well, I'll help you look for it."

"It's gotta be outside..."

"Yeah, I don't think we wanna go out there right now, though... with the bear and all--or whatever it is..."

"Fine," Taehyung plopped down onto the couch in defeat, so Jeongguk got to looking for a way to start the fire, and he was pleased to discover a dusty pack of matches sitting on the table near the kitchen.

So Taehyung watched, as Jeongguk made his way over to the mantel and reached to switch on the lamp it held, bathing the room in pale blue light. Then, he knelt down and slotted a few planks of wood into the fireplace, before he set them aflame with a match, filling the room with warmth.

"Man: one. Fire: zero."

" _Very_ nice," Taehyung eyed Jeongguk's ass with a seductive lip bite, as he stood from the floor and turned to face him.

"Alright, baby," Jeongguk's tongue momentarily accentuated the corner of his mouth in a knowing smirk when Taehyung stood from the couch as well. "What comes next?"

Taehyung reached to guide Jeongguk down onto the couch, with two gentle palms against his chest, before he took a step back and slowly unzipped his puffy coat, leading Jeongguk to remove his coat as well.

Taehyung's sweater came next, and as he turned around to make a show of shimmying his jeans down his legs, Jeongguk brought his arms up onto the back of the couch and drank in the sight.

"Oh, _fuck_ yeah," his voice lowered a bit, when Taehyung shamelessly dipped his hand into the waistband of his boxers, in order to give his dick a few lazy pumps.

With that, Jeongguk stood from his seat, and Taehyung took his boyfriend's spot as he peeled his sweater from his toned torso, leaving him in his black jeans and a grey tank.

Then, after Taehyung adjusted his position to lay back against the couch cushions, Jeongguk moved to climb on top of him and he reached a tattooed hand out to cup his lover's face, only to be interrupted by the sudden sound of shattering glass that came from somewhere nearby.

So Taehyung removed his hand from his boxers, just as Jeongguk immediately stood upright once more to try and discern where the noise had come from.

"Jeongguk??" Taehyung whisper-yelled as he anxiously reached for his hand. "What is that?"

"I don't know..."

"Okay, well, _find out_? Please?" he asked, so Jeongguk left the main area of the cabin en route to the bedroom, where he promptly discovered the source of the shattering glass sound; Someone, or _something_ , had broken one of the windows inside.

However, as he moved in closer to investigate, Jeongguk's brows furrowed when he discovered a lone iPhone, laying amongst the shards on the hardwood floor.

"It's your phone," he said, when he turned to find Taehyung, standing there in the bedroom doorway.

" _What_?" Taehyung's brows furrowed incredulously as well. "How is it _my_ _phone_??"

"I don't know--It just... came through the window...?" Jeongguk gestured to the window while he offered Taehyung his phone, to which the older man's jaw set tight, as he marched over to accept it from him.

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake! God _damn it_!"

"What?"

"Those fucking assholes probably followed us out here to fuck with us!" Taehyung replied exasperatedly. "Just when we were getting down to business, too!"

With that, Jeongguk followed Taehyung out of the bedroom and over to the front door, where he stood on the porch--in nothing but his boxers--and proceeded to scream into the wintry void.

"HEY, DICKHEADS!! YEAH, THAT MEANS _YOU_!! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE!! THE _FUCK_ ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?! YOU WANNA RUIN OUR FUN _THAT BAD_?!" Taehyung gave a wry laugh. "WELL, GUESS WHAT?! YOU _CAN'T_!! JEONGGUK AND I ARE GONNA _FUCK_ AND IT'S GONNA BE _HOT_!! SO _ENJOY IT_ BECAUSE I KNOW _WE'RE_ GONNA!!"

As Jeongguk stood in the center of the room, gaping at his boyfriend in astonishment, Taehyung rubbed at his temples in annoyance. "Ugh! Give me a fuckin' break!" he shouted toward the sky when he finally turned to re-enter the cabin.

Before he could make it too far, however, Taehyung felt something rough envelope his thin wrist, before he was abruptly being dragged off the porch, and away from the cabin altogether, with a horrified cry of his lover's name.

" _JEONGGUK_!!!"

" _TAEHYUNG_!!!" Jeongguk disregarded anything and anyone else, while he reached to pull one of Jin's hunting rifles out of its case near the open door, and immediately sprinted full speed into the darkness.


	5. 🦋THREE - ISOLATION👤

"Jimin!!"

"What?!" Jimin shouted back, after he heard Seokjin calling his name from somewhere downstairs.

"You wanna help me get this fire going?!"

"Uhh... well, I was just getting into the bath!!"

"Oh!!" Jin's voice lilted playfully. "Well, do you need any help with that?!"

"Oh, _hardy har_!!" Jimin pretended to laugh at the man's suggestive question, despite thinking he wouldn't necessarily mind it, if Jin decided to join him in the massive jacuzzi of a tub upstairs.

He didn't reply, however, so Jimin moved to turn on the water. After a few moments, he reached a hand under the stream and audibly sighed at the ice cold feeling of it, before he left to find Jin, in hopes of locating the water heater.

"Alright, peanut gallery, you know what?" Jin's voice sounded much louder, once Jimin was descending the steps. "I got an idea for you two."

"What?" Hoseok's voice chimed in curiously.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that somewhere in this crazy place, we used to have a _spirit board_ ," Jin said.

"A what?"

"Wow. You have a spirit board?" Yoongi chuckled at that. "Those things are a joke, man. They don't do shit."

"No way, bro," Jin shook his head. "We used to use it all the time; Me and... well--"

"Jin," Jimin cut into their conversation just in time to save him from the painful reminder of the year before, "no hot water's kind of a major oversight, don't you think?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just gotta fire up the boiler. It's in the basement," Seokjin explained to him, before he turned to face Yoongi & Hoseok once more. "You guys, see if you can find the spirit board?"

"Yoongi, let's go find it," Hoseok encouraged him with a hopeful expression. "It'll be like a scavenger hunt!"

"Um..." Yoongi hummed thoughtfully, before he moved to follow him deeper into the lodge. "Okay... guess so."

"You up for a ride-along?" Seokjin asked Jimin, who shrugged in response.

However, as he followed him over to the stairs and down into the basement, Jimin couldn't help but smile fondly at the back of Jin's head, until they finally reached the heater and he turned to face Jimin again.

"Notice how I gave Yoongi & Hobi a mission together?" he smirked mischievously. "I was thinkin' they could use some _alone time_."

Rather than choosing to **mock Yoongi** for the way he always seemed to clam up around Hoseok, Jimin chose to **agree with Seokjin**.

"They are _very_ sweet together," he nodded sincerely, before he half-jokingly added, "I wish they'd just friggin' _get on with it_ already."

🦋

"I swear," Jin chuckled with him for a second. "They just need, like... something to bond over, you know? Some sort of traumatic event to send them into each other's arms. I mean, at this rate, they'll be in the _geriatric ward_ before Yoongi makes a move."

Then, after a moment, Seokjin's expression became a bit more serious.

"You know, Jimin..."

"Yes, Jin?" he raised an expectant brow when the man paused.

"I just wanted to say... it really means a lot to me that everyone came back this year..." he told him, "and you know... that _you_ came, Jimin."

So Jimin **reassured Seokjin** \-- by saying, "Jin, we're here for you. Really. _Whatever_ you need... _whenever_. We're all gonna make it through this. Together," --instead of choosing to **mention how uneasy he truly felt** about being back.

🦋

Seokjin nodded understandingly, and he swallowed thickly at Jimin's heartwarming words, before he said, "yeah... I want us to have a good time." Then, as he moved to power up the boiler, he added, "sorry to drag you down into the bowels."

"Just get me some hot water and I'll be all set."

"I mean, I wouldn't want you coming down here on your own," Jin replied.

"Well, it's _definitely_ creepy down here," Jimin mumbled, as he glanced around the dark, dusty basement.

Then, his gaze fell upon a wooden baseball bat that was leaning against the wall, before **he chose to pick it up**.

🦋

"It'd be pretty rough playing baseball out in all that snow," Jimin thought aloud, while he gripped the handle with both hands and raised the bat out in front of him to study it. 

"Well, it wasn't in the winter, silly," Seokjin teased him, and when he reached for the bat, Jimin handed it over without protest. "We'd come up in the summer, and we would have the _best_ time... the whole family was there; Mom, dad... my _sisters_..." he added with a purse of his lips. 

"It was some _serious_ competition out there on the big lawn," Jin's smile slowly returned, upon fondly recalling the bittersweet memory, before he shrugged it off. "I dunno," he said. "Can't go back... New reality. Right, Jimin?"

"Anyway," Jin cut in when Jimin remained warily silent. "I'm supposed to be getting you some hot water, right?" he chuckled as he got back to it.

However, when Jimin suddenly heard something that sounded quite similar to footsteps, he quickly turned around, and his brows furrowed when he was met with nothing but the empty expanse of the basement.

"What was that?"

"What was what?" Seokjin asked him, from where he was still preoccupied with the heater, so Jimin let it go and promptly high-fived the older man, once he was finally able to fire it up. 

Then, upon hearing another noise from somewhere deeper in the basement, Jimin quickly turned around once more.

"What the hell is that?"

"Could be a lot of things," Jin shrugged, before he teasingly walked his fingertips over Jimin's shoulder to scare him, "and none of them nice~"

"Hey. Quit it," Jimin immediately brushed his hands away.

"I'm just messing with you," Jin chuckled, earning a mocking bout of laughter from the younger man, before he added, "you were really freaked out."

Jimin could've chosen to get even and **prank him back** , but he **huffed in protest** to show his indifference instead.

"I was _not_ scared," he said as-a-matter-of-factly.

🦋

"No? You just jumped because you wanted to squeeze in some aerobics?"

So Jimin **accused Seokjin of being scared** , too, instead of attempting to **protest again**.

"Oh, my God. You were totally freaked out, too!"

🦋

"What? No--"

"You're as white as a sheet!" Jimin giggled, as he poked Seokjin's chest.

"Nah, nah. Come on. I been down here enough. This place makes all kinds of sounds," he played it cool. "I mean, a big ol' lodge has gotta belch out sometimes."

A metallic clanging sound broke the pair out of their little bubble.

"Okay, so you hear that, too... right?" Jimin asked him seriously, when the sound suddenly repeated, again and again. "The rhythm is, like... _weirdly_ regular."

"No... nothing "regular" about it..." Seokjin's playful expression dissipated, which did nothing to help combat the way Jimin's heart was thrumming away in his chest.

Jimin could've taken the heroic route, by choosing to **investigate the noise himself** , but he chose to **stick with Seokjin**.

"Maybe we should check it out...?"

🦋

"Why?" Seokjin asked, despite the way he was already absentmindedly wandering closer to the source of the noise.

"I dunno," Jimin shrugged, as he reached out to hold onto Jin's forearm. "What if it's, like, a pipe that's about to burst? Or some problem with the furnace?"

"Unlikely."

"If it were me, I wouldn't want this place to burn down on my watch," Jimin thought aloud.

"Yeah. Right," Jin nodded in agreement, before he began to lead the way deeper into the basement.

However, as they rounded a corner, they were instantly met with a dark, hooded figure, which caused Jimin to yelp in surprise. When the figure immediately began to chase them, Jimin let go of Seokjin's arm, and turned to run back toward the stairs.

"WHOA!!" Jin yelled while he sprinted after him.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Jimin cried when he reached the top of the steps, just to find that the door was locked. "NO!! COME ON!! WHY IS THIS LOCKED?!" he shouted at Jin when he met him near the door, before he began to slam his shoulder into the wood of it, in an attempt to break it open instead, but to no avail.

"Aye," a casual voice greeted them from behind, which resulted in the utterly confused expression Jimin wore, when they turned to find the hooded figure nonchalantly standing there, about halfway up the steps.

"What??"

"Ayyye~"

"What the hell?!" Jimin exasperatedly demanded an explanation for all this, which he immediately received when the figure removed their hood, to reveal that it was just Yoongi in some sort of set costume.

"Boom! You just got _monked_!" he pointed to Jimin with a smirk.

"WHAT?!" Jimin looked like he was about ready to square up on Yoongi, so Jin reached for his shoulder to console him with an amused laugh.

"Nice," he told Yoongi. "Nice one. That was good."

"Wh--" Jimin glanced back and forth between the pair, before he shook his head at both of them. "Why?! Why would you do that?!"

Yoongi shrugged with a tinge of guilt to his features. "'Cause there's all this cool old movie crap down here," he gestured flippantly toward the bottom of the steps. "What, was I _not_ supposed to take advantage of the opportunity?"

"Are you--Are you serious?!" Jimin asked rhetorically, before he turned to fix Jin with the same incredulous look. "Were you in on this?!"

"No," Seokjin laughed again. "But I wish I was! That was too good," he fist-bumped Yoongi then, before the younger man moved to unlock the door.

As he walked through the door behind them, Jimin sighed, "I'm ready to admit that your dumb little prank may have had a _slight_ whiff of humor to it."

"Joke master," Yoongi called himself.

"Hey, I said _nothing_ about _jokes_ ," Jimin replied. "I said your _prank_ , which was _dumb_ \--"

"Holy crap. You were scared. Just admit it," Jin teased Jimin.

"I was _not_!!"

"Come on. You totally pissed yourself."

" _Jin_!!" Jimin groaned, as Yoongi met Hoseok in the main room.

"What, in God's name, are you _wearing_?" Hoseok raised a brow at Yoongi, as he gave him a brief once over.

So Yoongi jokingly brought his hands together in a silent prayer and told him, "I've found my true calling."

"Hm. Please tell me you're gonna take a vow of silence," Hoseok teased him. So Yoongi started moving his lips as if he was speaking, but didn't make a sound as he did so, which resulted in an adorable giggle from the younger man. "Okay, okay, did you at least find the thingy?"

"Yep," Yoongi reached into the front of his cloak, before he triumphantly waved the Ouija board above his head. "Here's our one way ticket to the spirit realm~"

"You know what? No," Jimin shook his head then. "I've just been through enough spooking for one night, okay? I see a hot bath in my crystal ball. So have fun!" he said, and he moved to ascend the steps, but quickly turned back to tell them, "oh, but watch out for that Jin; He's a schemer!"

**\---**

"Hey, Em?" Namjoon prompted from where he'd been walking the trail with his girlfriend, in order to search for her missing bag.

"Yeah?" she stopped to listen to him, so he paused as well.

Given the chance to either **criticize or dismiss her behavior** , Namjoon decided a fresh start would be preferable to the argument that would undoubtedly ensue, should he have chosen to criticize her instead.

"I think we should start the weekend over," he suggested. "Right now. Clean slate."

🦋

"Oh?"

"No arguing, no Jeongguk, no Taehyung..." Namjoon continued. "Just you and me, enjoying ourselves in all this nature," he raised an arm toward the sky and let a few snowflakes fall upon his palm, before they inevitably melted there.

"Oh, you mean _au naturel_?" she flirted.

"Damn straight," he smirked in response.

"I can get with that," she hummed with a momentary bite of her lower lip, before she carried on leading the way back down to the cable car station, until they suddenly reached a fork in the trail.

"Come this way," she told him while **she moved to lead him down the path to the right** , so Namjoon chose to **flirt with her** , rather than **insist that they go back** to the lodge.

"You uh... tryin' to get me somewhere _private_?" he tilted his head with a look of interest painted on his features.

"Why don't you come find out?"

🦋

Then, Namjoon spared a glance down the path to the left, before Emily's brows furrowed in confusion.

"What're you doing, you weirdo?"

"What? I'm following you," he said as he got to removing the short distance between them.

"Good boy," she praised him. "Now, obey," she added, before she turned on her heel and continued down the trail.

"Namjoon?" Emily spoke up again, after a short moment of peaceful silence.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for helping me find my bag..." she said sincerely. "I know I can be a little high maintenance..."

Given the chance to either **boast or sulk** about it, Namjoon easily decided on the former.

"It's not a problem, babe," he assured her with a kind smile. "But you gotta remember; There's more to this guy than just bein' a lean, mean, luggage-lifting machine."

🦋

"You gonna back that up?" Emily raised an expectant brow.

"Any time," he smirked, to which she just shook her head with an amused giggle.

They continued walking, until they reached a little clearing in the trees, where a picnic table lay beneath the pale glow of a streetlamp, as well as a few inches of powdery snow.

"It's so pretty out here tonight," Emily thought aloud as she paused to take in the scene.

Namjoon nodded sincerely in agreement, as he took it in as well, "wow... yeah."

"And it's so nice to be here with _you_ , muscle man," she said while she slowly guided him backward, until his ass met the edge of the table.

"I'm not all muscle," he modestly shook his head at that. "There are some brains in here, too," he informed her as he tapped his temple.

"Well, you got enough brains to like me, so let's see that _brawn_ ," she playfully walked her fingertips up his toned chest over his letter jacket.

"You ever done it outside before?"

"Outside of what?" Emily's flirtatious smile instantly fell from her face, just as she backed away from him.

"My car," Namjoon answered, despite the way she was beginning to make him nervous, with the way she'd suddenly pulled away.

"I like your car," she shrugged. "Roomy," she called it.

"This ain't roomy enough for you?" he outstretched his arms at his sides, in a silent gesture to the open area they were currently standing in.

Then, when **he turned to brush the snow away from the tabletop** , Emily anxiously pursed her lips, before **she moved to stop him**.

"Uh... you know what? Maybe there's a better spot..." she quickly glanced around.

🦋

"Does this " _spot_ " start with a " _G_ "?" Namjoon quipped.

"There are lots of places out here--"

"I already started clearing this off..." he pointed his thumb toward the table, "like a gentleman."

"Oh, come on. Let's look around," she encouraged him to follow her.

So **he reached to brush the rest of the snow off the end of the table** and, upon immediately spotting a knife-carving of a heart embedded within the grain of the wood, the mood quickly evaporated.

"Oh. Well, would you look at that..." he shook his head at the sight of the letters "JK + EM" that'd been carved in the center.

🦋

" _Hey_ ," Emily sighed. "Don't be jealous--"

"What the hell, Em?" he asked as he looked up at her again. "Why would you take me here? Make me feel like a chump?"

She rolled her eyes at that, before she reached for his hands and told him, "don't be so sensitive. I'm here with _you_ , right now. _Guk's_ the chump."

"Okay..." Namjoon gave in, with a sigh of his own, upon hearing that. "Maybe "chump" isn't the right word..."

"What is?" Emily asked him, as she was worried that he was still upset with her, but his answer caught her pleasantly off guard.

"Lucky."

"Hm," she hummed, with a quick peck to his lips, before she turned to continue on down the trail. "You're getting there."

"What's so important about this bag, anyways?" Namjoon curiously inquired as they walked.

"It's just my undies," she replied, "the _lacy_ ones..."

"Well, we don't need those," Namjoon paused on the trail again.

"You don't want me to model them for you?" Emily turned to walk backwards instead.

"I'm just gonna rip 'em off anyways," he shrugged with a smug little grin.

"Maybe I wanna show them off," she shrugged as well, before she turned to keep walking forward. "Puts me in a _generous mood._ "

"Then, let's go get 'em," he raked his teeth over his lower lip, as he momentarily watched her walk away.

However, when a sudden disembodied shriek rang out from somewhere nearby, Emily froze up and Namjoon quickly moved to join her side again.

"What the hell was that?" Emily asked and, while she glanced around in search of the source, she blindly reached to hold onto Namjoon's hand as well.

"I-I don't know..." he laced his fingers with hers, when they heard another shrill wail, which sounded much closer this time around.

"You know, I kinda don't give a shit about the panties anymore--kinda just wanna split," Emily told him, as she began to tug him back toward the direction which they originally came.

"Agreed," Namjoon immediately nodded and, with that, the pair backtracked all the way up to the safety of the lodge.

**\---**

_I would like to understand your feelings towards people who fear the supernatural._

_Do you share this fear?_

_If you don't, then, how do you feel about people who **are** afraid?_

_Jeongguk has a fear of **isolation**._

_Do you feel pity for him?_

_Let us investigate your feelings toward other people in greater depth._ _What you value. What you respect in yourself and others._

_Which would you say was most important in a person?_

_Loyalty or honesty?_

_Would you tell the truth even if it resulted in an unpleasant outcome for a friend?_

_What about honesty and charity?_

_Charity is overrated, I suppose._

_Better to be true to yourself than to help others in need, eh?_

_But once again, I'm afraid we are out of time._

_We will talk again soon._

**-Dr. Hill**

**\---**

**[ISOLATION - 8 HOURS UNTIL DAWN]**

"So it says here, "to communicate with the spirit world, you must free your mind of all preconceptions, drop all inhibitions, and generally give yourself over entirely to the will of others, sublimating your every desire to the whims of the Spirit Master," which is _me_."

"It doesn't say that," Hoseok rolled his eyes at Yoongi from the end of the dining room table.

"And all present will remove their garments at my sole discretion--"

"Yoongi, come on. This is serious," Seokjin shook his head at Yoongi from where he sat across the table from him.

"Oh, I'm _deadly_ serious," Yoongi said in a posh accent.

"Oh, shush it. Let's try this," Hoseok gestured vaguely toward the wooden Ouija board that lay on the table between the three of them.

"Yes, please," Jin sighed, as if he was relieved to be segueing the subject from Yoongi's jokes.

"Okay, then... let's see what happens," he shrugged, before he brought his hands up onto the teardrop-shaped planchet, that rested idly on the center of the board. "Hoseok, since you're a recent convert, why don't you be our medium for today?"

Hoseok timidly nodded his head in agreement, as he and Jin placed their fingertips on the cursor as well, and he had the chance to **joke around a bit** , but he chose to show some respect for the dead and **remained serious**.

"Okay, um..." he quickly thought of something to say on the spot. "Is anyone there...? Will you reveal yourself to us...?"

🦋

Then, after a brief moment of unmoving silence, the planchet slowly began to glide across the polished wooden surface of the board.

"Wait a minute--" Yoongi scoffed in disbelief at the sight.

"Did you do that?" Seokjin raised a brow at Hoseok, who immediately shook his head.

"I didn't do anything," he swore with a concerned furrow to his brows, and he quickly began to wonder if this was really such a good idea.

"It's moving again!" Yoongi laughed because clearly, as a skeptic, he found the situation rather amusing.

"H..." Hoseok read aloud, when the eye of the cursor abruptly singled out the letter.

"What's it spelling?" Seokjin asked--as if either of them would know, either--while the planchet rapidly slid back and forth along the alphabetized face of the board. "How's this happening?"

"Hold on," Hoseok shushed him, so he could concentrate on piecing together whatever it was that the board was trying to spell out.

"Are you moving it?" Yoongi accused Seokjin then, who simply shook his head, as he curiously studied the board.

" _Help_...?" Hoseok concluded, once the cursor paused over the letter P, before he looked to Yoongi & Jin for their reactions.

"How are we supposed to help?" Yoongi asked.

"I don't know."

"Well, we need to know who it is, if we're supposed to help them," he added.

Therefore, Hoseok chose to **ask who needed help** , rather than **ask how they could help**.

"Who are you?"

🦋

When the cursor began to move again, Hoseok anxiously pursed his lips.

Then, as the eye of the planchet started singling out individual letters for its next choice of words, the three took turns reading each letter aloud.

"S..." Jin began.

"I..." Hoseok quietly gasped with the forceful movement of the cursor, as it slid back down to:

"S..."

"T..."

"E...?"

"R..." Yoongi concluded.

" _Sister_ ," Hoseok's gaze instinctively shifted to Seokjin, who sat to his right with furrowed brows and a set jaw.

"Whose sister?" he muttered.

"Oh, come on," Yoongi rolled his eyes. "Is this for real?"

"Shut up!" Seokjin snapped, before he told Hoseok to, "ask it. Whose sister?"

"Jin..." Hoseok whimpered. "I-It's gotta be--"

"Yeah?" Jin scoffed at that. "Okay, well, which sister is it then?"

That's when Hoseok silently decided that this _really_ wasn't the best idea, but nevertheless, Yoongi politely requested, "Hobi? Ask who it is..."

So--despite his visible indifference--Hoseok quickly decided whether to **speak to Hannah or Beth**.

"Who are we speaking to?" he asked. "Hannah...? Is that you?"

🦋

The planchet immediately moved to the bold-lettered **YES** in the upper lefthand corner.

"Oh, God..." Hoseok covered his frowning mouth with his free hand, while Yoongi released another skeptical laugh.

"This is messed up," he shook his head.

"Jin? A-Are you--?"

"I'm fine," Seokjin assured Hoseok, despite the blatant look of suffering on his face.

"Are you sure...? We can stop..."

"Dude, it's cool--" Yoongi added, but Jin wasn't having it.

"I want to hear what it says," he told them.

"I don't know where to start..." Hoseok shook his head stressfully.

"Think about it..." Yoongi began, "if this _is_ actuallyHannah, maybe we can find out what happened that night...?"

"Jin?" Hoseok looked to him once more.

"I can handle it..." he answered just above a whisper.

"Okay, um... let me think..."

Hoseok rushed to decide whether to **ask what happened last year or apologize for it** instead.

"Hannah..." he started, "if you can hear this... we all want to apologize for what happened..."

🦋

"I-It was _stupid_ and _mean_ and... we're sorry," Yoongi added, despite his skepticism.

"We're _so sorry_ , Hannah," Hoseok's eyes welled with tears, before the cursor began to move again. 

"B..." he shakily read the first letter aloud, then, "E... T..." and at that point, the three had assumed that the board was spelling out Beth's name.

However, when the planchet harshly slid over to the next letter, their heartbeats quickened within their ribcages.

"R??"

"Uh oh..." Yoongi droned.

"I don't like this..."

" _Betrayed_ ," Yoongi concluded for Hoseok when he quietly began to sob. "Fuck, it's still going..."

"Oh, God--" Hoseok read the next letters aloud, despite his tears. "K--I--L--L--E--D?? No!!"

"Killed?" Jin uttered.

"We didn't kill them!! It was just a prank!!" Hoseok cried.

"H-Hobi, calm down, okay?" Yoongi gently consoled him. "Just--we need to find out more--"

"I'm sorry!! I am _so sorry_!!" Hoseok apologized to the ceiling.

"Guys, what do they mean?" Seokjin captured their focus once more.

"Ask them what happened. It's the only way to know," Yoongi told Hoseok. "Ask them, Hobi."

So the youngest tried his best to calm down and, once he was able to, he chose to **ask how they died** , rather than **ask who killed them**.

"H-How did you die? Hannah, what happened to you?"

🦋

"L--I--B--?" he began to read the next word's spelling, when Yoongi suddenly chimed in again.

" _Library_. Maybe there's something in the library here--"

"P--R--O--"

" _Proof_ ," Yoongi quickly figured out the next word as well. "Th-There's _proof_ \--"

"In the library??" Hoseok asked.

Then, the board suddenly began to shake, and the planchet went flying off the board and into the wall behind Jin, before it uselessly fell to the floor.

Yoongi let out a breathless chuckle, as if to silently ask if that really just happened.

"Holy shit!" Hoseok stood from his seat then and stressfully began to pace behind it.

"You know what? _No_ ," Seokjin abruptly stood from his seat as well. "This is _bullshit_. This isn't real."

"Jin, I don't know what's going on," Hoseok told him honestly.

"Look, I don't know if you think that messing with me is somehow going to help me deal with my _grief_ or whatever, but this is _not_ cool," Jin muttered back.

"Jin, _no_ \--you wanted to use the spirit board--" Hoseok shook his head in confusion.

"Hey, calm down," Yoongi told Seokjin with a furrow to his brows. "It's not Hobi's fault--"

"I don't need this right now, okay?! You guys are _full of it_!!" Jin snapped again, before he promptly stormed out of the dining room.

"Sh-Should we go after him?" Hoseok asked.

"Ah, man," Yoongi sighed stressfully. "I mean, he'll be okay. Let's... let's just give him some time."

"I don't blame him... that was crazy! The pointer flew right off the table!"

"I mean, if you were faking it, you were doing one hell of a job--"

"I wasn't _faking anything_!!" Hoseok swore. Then, after a brief moment of uncomfortable silence, he said, "I think we should do what it says... I think we should look in the library..."

"Do you really think the twins were communicating with us?" Yoongi asked when they moved to do so.

"I don't know... I don't know if I wish they _were_ or if I wish they _weren't_."

"I guess we should find out."

"Jin looked really freaked out at the seance..." Hoseok thought aloud, as he followed Yoongi down to the library.

"Yeah..." Yoongi agreed. "I mean, he looked like he was keeping it together, but..."

"Do you think we shouldn't have mentioned his sisters?"

"I mean, it's why we came back up here..." Yoongi shrugged at that.

"Yeah, but not to, like, _have a seance_..." he shook his head in response when they finally reached the library. "Maybe we went too far--" he thought aloud, just before several books fell from the shelf to their right. "Holy shit!"

"What?"

"Look!" Hoseok pointed to the empty shelf. "There was something behind the books," he said. "What is that?"

"Is it a button?" Yoongi raised a brow at the little red light embedded in the back of the bookshelf.

"Why would there just be a button??"

"That's a good question."

"Should I push it?" Hoseok tilted his head curiously, which Yoongi found quite endearing.

"That's what buttons are for, I guess," Yoongi teased him with another shrug.

So Hoseok cautiously reached to press the button and, upon doing so, the entire shelf began to move towards them, prompting them both to take a step back, before it slid off to the side to reveal a hidden doorway.

"Whoa..." Yoongi gaped in genuine surprise.

"What, are we in a movie right now??"

"If we are, I hope it's a rom-com..."

"Leave it to the Kims to have _secret passages in their house_??" Hoseok shook his head in astonishment.

"Maybe they didn't even know," Yoongi said. "This place is super old."

"Well... should we take a look?"

"After you," Yoongi pursed his lips, as he gestured toward the darkness beyond the open doorway.

"Nonono," Hoseok immediately declined, " _you_ go."

"Gee. Thanks," Yoongi rolled his eyes at that, before he bravely led the way inside.

Upon finding a photograph of Hannah & Beth, on a table at the far side of the secret hallway, Yoongi eyed it suspiciously, before he turned it over to discover something quite disturbing written on the back in jagged, blood red ink.

**I WILL TAKE THEM AND BLEED THEM LIKE PIGS AND RIP THEIR SOFT WHITE SKIN OFF**

**16 YEARS**

**16 FUCKING YEARS I WAITED** **FOR PRETTY LITTLE** **HANNAH AND BETH**

"Jesus..."

"What? What did you find?"

Given the chance to **protect Hoseok from the truth or be honest** about what he found, Yoongi reluctantly decided that honesty was the best policy, even if he knew full well that something like this would only upset Hoseok even further.

"Hobi, I... I don't want you to freak out," he began, "but look at this. I think this might be what the spirit board wanted us to find..."

🦋

"A clue?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "It's a letter."

"Let me see it," Hoseok requested, to which Yoongi warily handed it over.

"It's a threat," he explained, as Hoseok studied the photo for a moment, before he turned it over to find said threat.

"Yoongi..." he gaped, "this is serious. We need to find Jin. _Right now_."

Then, Yoongi nodded in agreement with the sentiment, and the pair immediately moved to find their eldest friend.

"Do you think someone was _actually_ after Hannah & Beth?" Hoseok asked him as they walked.

"If so, that would be _really_ messed up," Yoongi answered, before he confessed, "so um... I've just been thinking about something that I saw earlier with Jimin..."

"What?"

"Well... there was this WANTED poster... like full on western-style, you know?"

"So?"

"And Jimin really thought there was someone following him around..."

"So... so what?" Hoseok asked in confusion. "You're saying there's some _criminal_ _up on the mountain with us_?"

"Well, there's that guy I told you about--"

"Whoa, whoa, wait--what _guy_?"

"The guy who threatened the Kims," Yoongi answered. "He said he wanted to take revenge by burning the whole place down... and then I found that crazy psycho letter--"

"Yoongi... if this is your way of trying to make me feel better? _You're fired_ \--"

Just then, Seokjin's voice could be heard, yelling incoherently, from somewhere near the kitchen.

"You hear that??" Yoongi's brows furrowed.

"That was Jin!!" 

Hoseok rushed over to open the kitchen door and, upon doing so, he was immediately pulled into the room by an unseen force, causing him to scream out of fear.

However, before Yoongi could reach it, the door slammed shut.

"HOSEOK?!" he shouted as he tried the handle, but to no avail. "HOSEOK!! WHAT'S GOING ON?! LET ME IN!! _HOSEOK_?!"

When there was suddenly no response--not even so much as another fearful scream--Yoongi shouldered the door, in a desperate attempt to break it.

It took about three slams of his weight into the wood of it, before it finally gave in and allowed him entry, whereupon he fell face-first onto the tile floor.

Luckily, his hands shot out to catch him--just before he could inevitably bust his skull open--and as he got to pushing himself back up onto his feet, he gasped when he found Hoseok lying unconscious on the floor, just a few feet away.

"Hoseok??" Yoongi scrambled to get to him.

However, a masked man suddenly appeared in the space before him, withdrew his fist, and sucker-punched Yoongi square in the face--promptly knocking _him_ unconscious as well.

**\---**

_I am going to have you choose between people that you have come to know and like._

_Though, maybe you don't like them as much as you pretend to._

_Well, this is an exercise in honesty._

_Decide, for yourself, which person from each pair you **like** the most._

_Seokjin or Jimin?_

_Emily or Namjoon?_

_Hoseok or Yoongi?_

_Jeongguk or Taehyung?_

_Seokjin or Emily?_

_Taehyung or Yoongi?_

_Now, who is it that you most **dislike**?_

_Perhaps Emily... or maybe even Taehyung... is_ _a bit too bitchy for your taste?_

_Often a lack of confidence manifests itself as over-confidence._

_Think about that._

_Is that not just a little bit like..._ _**you**?_

_Once again, we're out of time._

_But not to worry._

_We'll talk again soon._

**-Dr. Hill**


	6. 🦋FOUR - LOYALTY💞

**[LOYALTY - 7 HOURS UNTIL DAWN]**

"OH, FUCK!!! WHAT THE _FUCK_?!!" Jeongguk cursed, as he jumped to skip the front porch steps of the guest cabin, in search of, " _TAEHYUNG_!!!"

"Oh, my God..." he felt his stomach flip, when he immediately took note of the ruby-red trail of blood that continued, from the bottom of the steps, into the darkness of the forest before him.

"TAE!!!" he cried out and he panted heavily, as he dashed across the unsteady surface of the snow-covered ground, rifle in hand, with the frosty wind nipping at the tattooed flesh of his bare arms.

Jeongguk didn't care about any of that, though; He just needed to follow the trail of blood and get to Taehyung, as soon as he possibly could.

So when he reached a short cliff along the trail, he brought the scope of the hunting rifle up to his eye and scanned the area below and, soon enough, he spotted Taehyung--severely injured, with bloody gashes littering his bare skin, from his head to his feet. 

" _TAE_!!!" Jeongguk shouted, as he lowered the gun and watched, as Taehyung weakly attempted to crawl toward the sound of his boyfriend's voice on his hands and knees.

However, as he was suddenly being dragged out of sight by his ankles across the jagged ground in the next instant, Taehyung's desperate cries for help echoed throughout the trees.

" _JEONGGUK_!!! _JEONGGUK, HELP ME_!!!"

So Jeongguk swiftly chose to **risk the shortcut** **and climb down the cliff** , rather than **carry on down the long and winding pathway** , in order to get to Taehyung faster.

🦋

As soon as he was able, Jeongguk let go of the cliff and jumped to the ground below, where he landed on his feet with a huff, before he broke into another adrenalized sprint down the bloody trail.

"Keep goin', Guk... keep goin'..." he chanted to himself under his panting breaths, even as his lungs were aching, his legs were burning, and his heart was threatening to pound straight out of his chest from how much he was internally panicking.

He skillfully dodged low-hanging tree branches and hopped over several logs and boulders that were in his way, until he came across a steep, declining hill before a clearing, where the main entrance of the mines resided alongside an ore house.

Then--upon immediately taking note of the blood-reddened snow that led up to the mining elevator--Jeongguk decided to **slide down the steep hill** to reach the mine shaft, rather than choose to **follow the path** that led down to the ore house.

🦋

"TAEHYUNG!!!" he shouted after he quickly reached the bottom of the hill and kept running because he could no longer hear Taehyung screaming for help.

When Jeongguk finally reached the rickety, metal elevator, he fell to his knees and burst into tears at the sight of Taehyung's seemingly lifeless body laying on the floor inside of it.

"Tae!!" he carelessly tossed the rifle aside, in order to reach out and cup Taehyung's dirt-and-blood-smeared face in his hands and, when his wet brown eyes slowly but surely blinked open, Jeongguk breathed a brief sigh of relief. 

"Oh, my God!! Tae!! _Fuck_ , baby--" he panted, "are you okay?!"

"H-Help..." 

Taehyung whimpered and writhed in agony, as he reached a blood-soaked hand out toward his boyfriend's face, resulting in the smear of red that painted Jeongguk's scarred cheek when the chains of the elevator suddenly snapped, sending Taehyung's body plummeting into the depths of the mines.

" _TAEHYUNG_!!!" Jeongguk screamed at the top of his lungs, as he remained crouched before the empty elevator shaft. " _WHAT THE FUCK_?!!" 

He grabbed two handfuls of his hair, when he stood and stressfully began to pace, before he glanced up toward the top of the shaft and spotted the silhouetted head & shoulders of a person staring down at him.

So Jeongguk's jaw set tight, and his gaze held every ounce of the smoldering rage he felt within, as he snatched the rifle off the ground and aimed it straight at the person's head through the scope, before **he pulled the trigger** without hesitation.

🦋

The silhouette disappeared in the same breath, however, which led Jeongguk to frustratedly shout, before he swung the rifle over his shoulder by its strap and moved to climb up the metal exoskeleton of the elevator to hunt down--the person he had assumed to be--Taehyung's attacker.

"Come on!!" Jeongguk growled through gritted teeth, as he worked his way upward as quickly as he possibly could, simultaneously urging himself to ignore the way his muscles strained and his breathing became shallow with exertion as he did so.

After he finally reached the top, he _barely_ had a chance to try and catch his breath, when he looked ahead and watched, as Taehyung's attacker walked through the only visible exit, which slowly began to shut.

" _Shit_ \--" Jeongguk huffed, as he broke into yet _another_ sprint toward the steadily-lowering metal of the door.

He was forced to drop down onto his side at the last second, too--resulting in the way he smoothly slid through the narrow gap between the door and the wooden panels of the floor--like a baseball batter sliding cleat-first into home plate.

Then, Jeongguk sat up, aimed the rifle at the back of the person's head, and promptly cursed when he pulled the trigger, only for the weapon to sputter uselessly in response.

" _Fuck_!! _Seriously_ , Mr. Kim?! Only _one fucking bullet_?!"

So he threw the gun to the ground with another frustrated growl, and Taehyung's attacker was able to get away, completely unscathed.

**\---**

When Yoongi finally came to--from where he'd been lying unconscious upon the kitchen floor of the lodge--the first thing he took note of, was the fact that Hoseok was no longer there with him.

"HOSEOK?!" he called for him, as soon as he was able to get back onto his feet, but there was no response.

So Yoongi searched the lodge, high and low, for his missing friend, until he inevitably discovered that Hoseok was no longer there, leading him to venture into the snowfall outside.

He searched the forest, just as he'd searched the lodge, until he eventually came across Seokjin's father's workshop, whereupon he entered and called for his friend once more.

"HOSEOK?!"

"Yoongi!!" 

"Hobi!! I'm here!!" Yoongi assured him, as he followed Hoseok's fearful voice, where it sounded somewhere deeper in the shop. "Where are you?!"

"I-I don't know!!" Hoseok cried.

"Are you okay?! What the hell happened?!"

"Yoongi, _please_!! _Help me_!!"

"I'm coming!!" he promised. "Just keep talking to me!! What happened?!"

"H-He tied me up!! I can't move!! You have to get me out of here before he comes back!!"

Yoongi's confused expression quickly faded into one of horror because the second he reached the back of the shop, the lights suddenly flickered on by themselves to reveal Seokjin & Hoseok, who were both hanging from a set of meat hooks by their wrists which were bound with rope.

They hung above the forked ends of a Y-shaped track, while a horizontal buzz saw lied dormant and unmoving at the opposite end of it, and a chainlink fence barricaded Yoongi from being able to reach them.

 _"Hello,"_ a deep, disembodied voice abruptly filled the room, _"and thank you for joining me. Tonight we're going to conduct a little experiment."_

Yoongi turned every which way, in an attempt to locate the source, but to no avail.

"What?! What is this?!" Seokjin demanded, as he & Hoseok attempted to break free from their bonds, also to no avail.

 _"A sort of test,"_ the voice answered.

Then, Jin craned his head to the right and asked, "Hoseok, what the hell is going on?!"

"I don't know!!"

 _"Now, for this experiment, we'll need the cooperation of our two test subjects... Seokjin & Hoseok,"_ the disembodied voice droned on. _"But we're going to need one more brave participant to help decide... which subject will live, and which will die."_

"NO!!! OH, MY GOD!!! YOONGI, GET US OUT OF HERE!!!" Hoseok sobbed.

"NO!!! YOU CAN'T DO THIS!!! LET ME DOWN FROM HERE, YOU MANIAC!!!" Seokjin shouted in the meantime.

 _"Please, please. Everyone, calm down,"_ the voice nonchalantly commanded. _"It's all very simple; Yoongi, you will find a lever placed directly in front of you."_

So Yoongi cast his gaze downward and, upon spotting said lever, complete with two photographs--Hoseok on the left, Seokjin on the right--the voice continued.

_"All you have to do... is choose who you will save."_

With that, the buzzsaw between the three of them whirred to life and, as it slowly but surely made its way closer to his friends, Yoongi was forced to pick which would get to live and which would have to die on the spot.

"Oh, my fucking God--" Yoongi muttered.

"OH, GOD, _PLEASE_!!! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!!!" Hoseok wailed, and he thrashed helplessly beneath the hook he'd been dangling from for so long, he could no longer feel his fingers.

"SHIT!!! NO!!! YOONGI!!!" Jin gave a dry chuckle among the overbearing tension in the room. "DUDE! BUDDY! LET'S JUST THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MINUTE!"

"OH, MY GOD!!! YOONGI, YOU CAN'T LET US DIE!!!"

"Just--" Yoongi's brain was going a mile a minute, as he tried his best to come up with a solution to their dire situation. "Give me a second... I-I can't think straight... _Shit_ \--"

" _HUH_?!!" Jin shouted at him incredulously. "YOU DON'T NEED A FUCKING _SECOND_!!! YOU JUST NEED TO _GET US OUT OF THIS_!!!"

Yoongi continued to internally struggle for a moment, before **he instinctively reached to shift the lever to the left** , causing the track to switch and direct the buzzsaw toward Seokjin in turn.

 _"Ah. I see you have chosen to save Hoseok,"_ the disembodied voice announced.

🦋

" _NO_!!!" Jin shrieked in realization. " _PLEASE, NO_!!! _YOONGI_!!! _WHAT THE FUCK, MAN_?!!"

"NONONONONO!!!" Yoongi's eyes welled with tears, and his fingers slipped into his hair to stressfully tug at the roots, as the three of them watched the buzzsaw. 

" _I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS, YOONGI_!!! _I THOUGHT WE WERE BROTHERS_!!! _WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS_?!!"

"I'M SORRY!!! OH, GOD!!! I'M _SO FUCKING SORRY, JIN_!!!" Yoongi sobbed.

"NO!!! GOD!!! WHAT DID I _DO_?!!" Jin shouted toward the ceiling and, as the saw drew even closer to the eldest, Hoseok anxiously squeezed his eyes shut.

"STOP IT!!!" Yoongi yelled toward the disembodied voice. "YOU CAN'T _DO THIS_!!! _PLEASE_!!!"

"AHHH!!!" Jin's voice was shrill with the excruciating amount of pain he felt, once the sharp teeth of the saw blade finally began to dig and tear into the flesh of his abdomen.

" _NO_!!! _JIN_!!!" Yoongi desperately pushed and pulled at the chainlink barrier between them. " _JIN--OH, GOD--BROTHER, I'M SO FUCKING SORRY_!!!"

Once Jin's screaming ceased, Hoseok whimpered brokenly, and he slowly turned his head toward Seokjin's body.

Before he could open his eyes, however, Yoongi told him, "nonono!! D-Don't look, Hobi!! Don't look!!"

"Why can't I look?! Yoongi, _please_ tell me he's okay!! _Please_!!" he begged, just as the fence abruptly timbered backward, allowing Yoongi entry.

"Just don't!! I'm gonna get you!!" Yoongi said as he rushed to lift Hoseok from the hook. 

"I'm right here, Hobi... I've got you... I'm gonna get you down," he promised, as Hoseok's eyes remained closed, and Yoongi's hands worked to untie his wrists.

The second the soles of his shoes hit the floor, Hoseok opened his eyes, rushed into Yoongi's open arms, and clung to his middle for dear life.

"We gotta get out of here," Yoongi said, as he just held him there for a moment. "Okay?" he asked.

When Yoongi leaned away just enough to thumb away his tears, however, Hoseok couldn't help but spare a glance toward Seokjin, and his eyes immediately widened with shock upon doing so.

" _NO_!!!" he screamed, and Yoongi quickly brought a hand up to shield the younger man's eyes from the traumatic sight of their best friend, who now hung lifelessly from the ceiling.

Then, Hoseok let Yoongi guide his head onto his chest, where he proceeded to soak the front of his jacket as he weeped.

"D-Don't look," Yoongi gulped, as he hypocritically stared directly at Jin's disturbingly halved corpse, before he moved to guide Hoseok out of the workshop and back up to the lodge.

"Yoongi!" Namjoon's voice sounded from somewhere behind the pair on the trail as they walked, causing them to shakily turn around, as both were clearly still in shock. "Hoseok!"

"Is that _blood_??" Emily chimed in from his side, to which the couple rushed to their aid. "Hoseok, whose _blood_ _is that_??"

"Are you okay??" Namjoon's eyes widened with concern.

"Yoongi, what happened?" Emily asked him because Hoseok was too choked up to speak.

"J-Jin..." Yoongi croaked.

"Jin _what_ , dude??" Namjoon asked.

"H-He's _dead_..."

"Wait, _what_?!"

"Right in front of us, man--" Yoongi uncharacteristically began to break down in the company of his friends, as the adrenaline finally wore off, and the reality of the situation set in. "Th-There's this _maniac_ \--"

"What are you talking about?!" Emily shook her head incredulously.

" _Maniac_??" Namjoon's brows furrowed in confusion.

"Oh, my God. We need to get the fuck out of here," Emily said seriously.

"I-I don't understand what happened--" Namjoon continued.

"There was a _maniac_!!" Yoongi sobbed exasperatedly, "a-and there was this _saw_ \--and it was either _him_ or _Hobi_ \--and _I didn't know what to do_!! It cut right through him!!"

"WHAT?!" Emily gaped in horror. "OH, MY GOD, YOONGI!! _WHAT_?!"

"I-I _KILLED_ _HIM_!!" Yoongi confessed. "I _KILLED JIN_!!"

"YOONGI!!" Namjoon gaped as well.

"IT WAS ALL MY FAULT, NAMJOON!!" Yoongi took full responsibility for what happened, before he & Hoseok crumbled in on themselves, despairingly clinging to one another as they knelt upon the snow together in defeat.

"No. This is _insane_ ," Emily shook her head in disbelief once more. "We need to go get some help."

"We're gonna figure this out," Namjoon crouched down before the sobbing pair and placed a gentle hand on each of their shoulders.

"I-I don't know..." Yoongi shook his head indifferently.

"Namjoon, we need to go get help. _Right_ _now_ ," Emily told him.

"Em, we should look for the others--" he replied as he stood tall at her side once more.

"Jeongguk & Taehyung are off 69ing each other," Emily rolled her eyes at the thought of the pair, "and who knows where Jimin is."

"I-I think he's in the lodge," Yoongi chimed in, as he reached for Hoseok's biceps, in order to stand with him again.

" _Fine_ ," Emily rolled her eyes again. "Fine, you're right. Let's get everyone else together. But if there's a _maniac_ running around, I think we need to get some help, too, _right_? Not just _wait around_??"

"But what about--?" Namjoon began, before Emily cut him off.

"Why are we even still talking about this?? Let's _go_!!"

**\---**

_Hello again._

_Things are getting pretty tense out there, aren't they?_

_Is the night going the way you hoped it would?_

_Do you think that these poor people are getting what they **deserve**?!_

_I'm trying to help you... and this "story" you're reading--don't you understand, it's not good for you?!_

_It's not good for **anyone**!_

_Do you intend to continue with this elaborate self indulgence?!_

_Do you even believe that **I'm** **real**?!_

_Oh, but the heart of the problem all comes down to this; Can you even tell the difference anymore?_

_I doubt it._

**-Dr. Hill**


	7. 🦋FIVE - PREY🐺

**[PREY - 6 HOURS UNTIL DAWN]**

"That's not good..." Jeongguk thought to himself, as he laid eyes upon the infamous Blackwood Pines Hotel & Sanatorium. " _Really_ not good..."

Having been locked out of the mine shaft, after he'd followed Taehyung's attacker, Jeongguk figured if he couldn't reach his lover, he could at least follow... _whoever this random person was_... around and (hopefully) find another entrance into the mines somewhere nearby.

He watched as they let themself into the main building with ease--alongside _**several massive** **grey** **wolves**_ \--and, as scared as he would never admit he was, Jeongguk carried on through the trees and the snowy brush until he reached the front doors of the building.

There were signs plastered all over the front windows, that'd been boarded up to keep people out. 

**CONDEMNED - JUNE 12, 1954**

"Awesome," Jeongguk sarcastically muttered to himself, "because why _wouldn't_ I end up in the _creepiest fuckin' place on planet Earth_??"

Regardless, rather than choosing to **blindly follow the stranger inside** , Jeongguk figured it would probably be smart to **enter through the cellar doors** at the side of the buildinginstead.

🦋

He braved the dark, dank expanse of the basement, and willed himself to ignore the chills that ran up his spine upon hearing a wolf's howl in the distance, before he finally came across a set of stairs leading up to the ground floor.

"Well... that's different..." he quietly thought aloud, when he entered the main hallway through the basement door, because being inside this place felt like traveling backward through time.

This was to be expected of a building that was abandoned in '54, but it certainly did nothing to settle Jeongguk's nerves, and neither did his fear of **isolation**.

At the end of the corridor, however, was a set of double doors, with a key card slot and a sign that read;

**CHAPEL SECURITY PASS REQUIRED**

So Jeongguk stealthily watched, through the small windows in the doors, as Taehyung's attacker strode deeper into the church, past the pews, and out through another door off to the left.

Then, Jeongguk moved to try and locate a key card of his own, following the signs on the walls that directed him toward various parts of the property, before he came across a medical report lying on a supply cart, as he ventured through the long, decrepit hallways of the sanatorium.

**MINER MEDICAL REPORT  
No. 42 - 06/01/1952**

** ATTENDING PHYSICIAN: **   
**Dr. N.H.F. Bowen**

**MEDICAL REPORT:  
Report follows re: the initial state of the twelve miners after the collapse of the mine, and subsequent rescue, at Blackwood Pines.**

** ADMITTANCE: **   
**On receipt of the twelve patients at the Sanatorium's medical facility, we had fully expected to find emancipated shells of men, starved and confused.**

**Thankfully, the miners appear cogent and relatively healthy, attributed to their apparent discovery of emergency food supplies in the mine. Inhibited respiratory function was detected in a few of the older men, as predicted, as well as symptoms of pneumonia.**

**Psychologically, after being trapped for 23 days, the shock of reintegration has been difficult for some of the group. Though their outward health is better than expected, they do seem affected by their time in the mine.**

** TREATMENT: **   
**Due to the delicate nature of some of the patients, we have closed off the A Wing of the Sanatorium. Psychological evaluations will take place as soon as possible. The men with respiratory problems have undergone a bronchoscopy, and are prescribed a course of streptomycin. The others are simply kept under strict, 24-hour observation.**

**Signed,  
Dr. Nicholas Henry Fowlis Bowen**

On the back of the report, was a note, handwritten in blue ink.

**_One of those guys actually tried to bite me! I'm going to report it to Dr. Bowen!_ **

"Yikes..." Jeongguk whispered, before he set the paper down and carried on toward the stairs leading down into the morgue, where he found a _machete_ of all things, stuck within the wood of the doorframe.

 **He forced it out by the handle and kept it on his person** , just in case, before he approached a set of shelves off to the side of the room, whereupon several disfigured human heads were suspended in jars of formaldehyde.

🦋

Jeongguk gulped at the sight of their beady eyes, wrinkled grey flesh, and several rows of menacingly sharp teeth that stuck out of their mouths in every direction.

"This place just keeps getting better and better..." he shook his head, before he turned on his heel toward the wall of body lockers at the opposite side of the morgue.

He didn't really know what exactly compelled him to **reach for the handle to open one** of them, slide the drawer out, and grimace at the sight of the long-since-decomposed human corpse that had been shut inside.

🦋

The promising sight of a key card sticking out of their uniform, however, led Jeongguk to believe that his luck may have been beginning to turn, as he quickly reached to snatch it out of their pocket.

Having caught Jeongguk's eye as well, **he curiously reached to pick up the registration of death** , that'd been lying beside their skull.

🦋

** NAME OF THE DECEASED:  
 _Sarah Smith_ **

** DATE OF DEATH:  
 _February 24th, 1952_ **

**_I hereby certify that I attended deceased from: March 8th, 1951 to February 24th, 1952 and last saw her alive on February 24th, 1952._ **

** CAUSE OF DEATH:  
 _Severe lacerations to the abdomen. Intra-abdominal injuries. Subsequent blood loss._ **

**If death was due to external causes (violence) fill in the following:**

** ACCIDENT, SUICIDE, OR HOMICIDE:  
 _Homicide_ **

** MANNER OF INJURY:  
 _Laceration by sharp implement. Possibly FINGERNAILS!_ **

**ADDITIONAL NOTES:**   
**Body was not discovered until 6-8 hours after death. Sections of the intestine and kidneys were apparently EATEN BY THE ATTACKER.**

**Signed by, N. Bowen MD  
Date: February 24th, 1952**

"Jesus fucking Christ..." Jeongguk's brows furrowed in concern, while he dropped the paper, and fearfully backed away from the corpse.

Instead, he approached the doorway at the far end of the room, where another **CHAPEL SECURITY PASS REQUIRED** sign resided on the wall beside it.

Slotting the card into the slot just below the sign, and watching the red **LOCKED** label switch to a green **UNLOCKED** as a result, had Jeongguk sighing in relief as he pushed through the door to allow himself inside.

The diminutive amount of triumph he felt was abruptly cut short, by the booming " _WOOF_!!!" of a grey wolf, that followed soon after the door closed behind him.

"OH, _FUCK_!!" Jeongguk just about jumped out of his skin, when he instinctively turned to find a large canine charging at him from the shadows, with an intimidatingly loud growl; Which caused him to make a break for it in the opposite direction, skipping steps along the staircase he briskly ascended into the chapel, before **he slammed the door shut between himself and the wolf**.

🦋

He paused to lean against the wood of it and breathe for a moment, then he crept over to one of the pews at the back of the church, crouched down behind one, and slowly peaked his head around the side of it to scan the area.

"Well, isn't this just a quaint little psycho crib?" Jeongguk muttered to himself, before he turned to unlock the door the stranger had exited through as well, where he was immediately met with the sight of another snarling grey wolf.

However, **Jeongguk froze on the spot** with his hands raised cautiously, instead of choosing to **harm the wolf** , which turned out to be a favorable decision, as the large dog moved to curiously sniff Jeongguk's pants, before it calmly backed off.

🦋

"Okay..." Jeongguk breathed with a grateful nod. "Easy, boy... easy..." he cooed as he slowly approached the wolf.

It warily allowed him to run his fingertips through its fur, so he hummed a sweet little, "good boy..." in response.

When the wolf lingered at his side as he continued to explore the hallway, Jeongguk grinned fondly, until he came across an army green, denim jacket, that hung beside the threshold of a supply closet. 

He pulled it down, shook it off, and quickly put it on to keep himself from freezing to death, before he took note of a revolver that had been resting on a shelf inside the room.

"What have we here?" he subconsciously tilted his head, but nevertheless, he reached to grab it, along with a large handful of bullets from the case that sat beside it.

So he loaded the cylinder, made it spin for a second, and snapped it closed.

Then, he aimed at the padlock on the **EXIT** door at the end of the hallway, cocked the hammer back, and shot the lock off with ease.

**\---**

"I can't believe Jin is dead..." Emily shook her head, at the seemingly low probability of that actually being the case, as she followed Namjoon back down to the upper cable car station.

"I can't believe _how_ he died..." Namjoon added in agreement, before she shook her head once more.

"No, I mean, what if they were wrong?"

"What?"

"Maybe we should've checked the shed to see if it was really true..."

"I dunno..." Namjoon replied indifferently. "There are some things that, once you _see_ _them_ , you can never _un-see them_..."

"Yeah, I guess... but some things you have to see for yourself," Emily thoughtfully added.

"I think I'll take their word for it," Namjoon said, in reference to Yoongi & Hoseok, who claimed they had watched their eldest friend be cut in half, right in front of them.

Because--as outlandish as the story had initially sounded--Namjoon didn't exactly feel too inclined to take so much as a single _step_ inside of that shed, on the off chance that Yoongi & Hoseok were telling the truth.

When the couple reached the station, Emily raised a brow at the sight of an axe stuck in the door, while **Namjoon moved to pull it out**.

"Nice. I'll feel _much_ better walking around with this," he gripped the handle properly and gave the tool a brief once over, as Emily reached to try the door handle.

🦋

"It's locked," she rolled her eyes, before she fixed Namjoon with an expectant look. "Well, break the door down, will you??"

"Whoa, wait a second," he shook his head at that. "We start smashin' shit down, he's gonna hear us."

"You got any better suggestions?"

"Okay, fine," Namjoon gave in and chose to **smash down the door with the axe**.

🦋

A few solid chops near the door handle allowed them entry, whereupon their brows simultaneously raised, at the disheveled state of the station's interior.

"What happened??" Emily shook her head in confusion because this was _definitely not_ how the place looked when they all first arrived.

"This is crazy..." Namjoon added.

"We were here just a few hours ago! This must've _just_ happened!" her tone of voice became understandably fearful.

"What the fuck is going on...?"

"It's gotta be that _guy_! Th-The one who got to Yoongi & Hoseok," she concluded then, before unnervingly adding, "and _Jin_..."

Namjoon nodded in agreement. "He's gotta know that this is the only way back down the mountain."

"Don't say that..." Emily requested as she brought her arms up around her middle.

"Look," Namjoon suddenly pointed out the window, where the cable car could be seen, dangling above the valley several feet out. "The cable car's all the way out there."

"Well--I mean, that's not far, right? Y-You can jump it?"

"I'm good, but I'm not _that_ good. Flattered, though."

"Well, if you can't jump that, what are we gonna do??" Emily panicked.

"I..." Namjoon tried to come up with a reasonable answer, but he simply couldn't. "I don't know..." he admitted.

"God... everything's all busted up..." she bit into her lower lip, as she took in the sight of the room once more, and Namjoon moved toward the map of the mountain that hung on the wall near the door. "It's such a mess. This place was _barely_ in working condition before, and _now_...?"

"Hey, look!" Namjoon pointed to the, "fire tower!" on the map, which resided a just short distance away from the cable car station.

"Hey, Magellan! Maybe we should get the cable car working and take this show on the road, huh??"

"No keys, no cable car. So we're back to square one."

"Maybe the fire tower has a radio or something... I mean, it would, wouldn't it?"

"Probably, yeah," Namjoon **agreed**. "Somebody's gotta pick up the signal."

🦋

"Looks like someone's finally learning to play by the rules," Emily muttered.

"What? What rules?" Namjoon's brows furrowed in confusion at that.

"Rule number one: Emily is always right, and rule number two: nothing else matters because Emily is always right."

"Uh huh."

**\---**

"What if it doesn't work?" Emily prompted, as she led the way up the mountain, in the direction of the fire tower.

"It'll work."

"Okay, but if it _doesn't_ , we need a plan."

"Maybe we can just climb down the mountain."

"Are you serious??"

"What's the big deal?" Namjoon asked. "It's not like it's floating in the sky."

"It might as well be!" Emily argued. "It's pitch black out!"

"Hey. Hopefully we won't have to."

"You think the psychopath is just gonna give up and run away??"

" _No_ ," Namjoon rolled his eyes at that. "But maybe we should just find a safe spot--hole up and wait it out... it'll be a lot easier to figure all of this out in the morning."

"As long as we don't hide in the lodge; That's where he'd expect us to--whoa..." Emily suddenly paused on the trail, causing Namjoon to stop as well once he caught up to her. "That's _Beth's_ phone..." she pointed to the cracked screen of an older iPhone generation that lay on the ground before her.

"I thought the police swept the whole area...?" Namjoon shook his head incredulously.

"Well, they _definitely_ missed _this_..."

**\---**

A soft _thud_ distracted Jimin's train of thought, from where he'd been relaxing in the comforting warmth of the bath upstairs.

"Hello?" he craned his head toward the door. "Guys? What are you doing out there? Being creepy?"

When there was no response, however, Jimin raised a brow and reluctantly moved to climb out of the tub.

He wrapped a towel around his waist, and reached to grab his clothes off the counter, when he realized they were no longer sitting there.

So he simply sighed in annoyance.

"My clothes?! Really?!" he called out to his friends, who he'd assumed were just pulling another prank on him. "Whichever one of you did this is off my Christmas list!! Seriously!!"

"Yoongi?! Jin?!" Jimin called as well, once he left the room to search for the pranksters. "Emily?! _Anybody_?!"

"Okay, _haha_ , _very funny_!!" he gave a fake-but-nervous laugh, " _look at Jimin walking around in a towel_!!"

"You had enough, yet?! Can I have my clothes back now, or am I just supposed to hang out in a towel for the rest of the weekend?!"

However, there was still no response.

"Towel it is, then..." Jimin muttered to himself under his breath, as he stomped his way down the steps and into the foyer. "If you were trying to freak me out, guess what?! You've succeeded!!"

"Guys, come _on_!! I'm _done_ with this!! I _really_ don't appreciate the silent treatment here!!" he began to panic, as he wandered over to the in-home movie theater near the kitchen, but he shouted out of fear when the doors suddenly slammed shut behind him.

He whipped around with wide eyes, panting breaths, and a quickly beating heart, before a deep, disembodied voice suddenly sounded from the speakers at the opposite side of the room.

 _"Hello, Jimin... looking for me?"_ they asked, when Jimin immediately began to search for the real source of the voice. _"I don't think you'll have much luck by looking, Jimin."_

"What the hell??"

 _"You're only going to see what I want you to see..."_ they said, just before the film projector abruptly flickered to life, and a video began to play against the silver screen, _"and I have quite a lot to show you."_

"What is going on?!" Jimin demanded an answer.

 _"Open your eyes,"_ the voice replied, and Jimin gaped in horror as he watched the projection and quickly recognized the sight of himself sitting in the tub.

"Oh, my God..."

_"He's quite beautiful... isn't he? A beautiful bathing bird..."_

"How--?? Wh--??"

_"Do you think he has any idea what lies ahead? Do you think these were the last happy moments of this creature's life?"_

"Why are you showing this to me?!"

 _"Why are you watching?"_ the voice quipped, while the projection suddenly changed to a clip of Seokjin, as he was being ripped in half by a saw blade in his father's workshop.

" _JIN_!!!" Jimin's voice broke, along with his heart that shattered, and his stomach that flipped, as he helplessly watched on through his tear-blurred vision.

_"How does it make you feel?"_

"OH, MY _GOD_!!! WHAT DID YOU _DO_?!!" Jimin shrieked.

_"I'm going to give you ten seconds... nine..."_

"NO!!! NONONO!!!" Jimin begged, as he quickly backed away from the projection, only to bump into the locked doors he'd originally entered through. "PLEASE, NO!!!"

Then, he screamed again when the doors swung open, and a masked man rushed into the room, wielding a needle full of an off-yellow substance.

"Jiminie~!"

" _FUCK YOU_!!!" he shouted, as he reached for one of Mrs. Kim's rare vases, in order to chuck it at the maniac's head, before he bolted out of the home theater and over to the closest door he could find.

Jimin slammed it shut behind him and, given the chance to either **run or hide in the hallway** , Jimin easily chose to **keep running** , until he reached the bottom of the steps leading down into the basement.

🦋

Then, Jimin had another opportunity to either **run or hide** , at which point he suddenly remembered the baseball bat he'd found earlier on in the night, before he rushed to **hide beside the boiler**.

🦋

He tried to remain quiet, but his labored breaths made that nearly impossible, as the maniac easily spotted him.

"The doctor will see you now..."

" _NO_!!!" Jimin moved to run again, only to be caught in the man's arms.

Then, with the needle slowly inching toward the flesh of his neck, as he struggled to break free, **Jimin reached for the handle of Jin's baseball bat and promptly cracked his attacker over the head with it**.

🦋

The maniac let him go then, and Jimin was quick to sprint even deeper into the basement, where he came across the handleless door of--what he had assumed to be--the only exit.

"ARE YOU FUCKING _KIDDING ME_?!! NO _HANDLE_?!!" he smacked his palms against the door in frustration, before he looked to his left and decided to **pull one of Mr. Kim's wine racks down** to create another obstacle, rather than **try to force the door open**.

Upon doing so, the metal knob of the door's handle slowly rolled out from behind the rack, just as the maniac finally rounded the corner at the end of the hall.

🦋

So Jimin snatched the knob off the ground, slipped it back into place, and (somehow) managed to make it out of there alive.

Unfortunately, after locking the door behind himself and taking a moment to breathe, Jimin turned on his heel, only to come face-to-face with the masked man once again.

"AH!!!" he cried out, when he felt the sharp pinch of the needle, that was roughly jabbed into the side of his neck in the next instant.

"So sorry..." the maniac cooed, as Jimin momentarily struggled within his hold.

Then, Jimin's eyes slowly fluttered shut, and he inevitably slipped out of consciousness.


	8. 🦋SIX - PSYCHOSIS🌪

**[PSYCHOSIS - 5 HOURS UNTIL DAWN]**

"You alright?" Namjoon asked, once he and Emily had finally reached the top of the fire tower.

"Yeah," she answered, before she quickly began to search the place, and her frown deepened upon finding a copy of Hannah's missing poster on the wall. "Sorry, Hannah... you're still missing..." Emily thought aloud.

"After tonight, their disappearance is starting to make more sense."

Disheartened by her boyfriend's statement, Emily turned toward the ham radio on the table to her right. However, when she pressed the power button, nothing happened.

"Yeah, so, no power. There's gotta be a switch or something around here..." she shook her head as she thought to herself for a moment, before she curiously moved to the door and let herself out onto the wrap-around balcony.

The first thing she spotted--like a gift from above--was an emergency flare box, which she immediately opened and grinned as she reached for the bright orange gun resting on the inside.

Then, **she easily located a circuit breaker** on the outer wall beside the door **and lifted the switch** , causing the lights and electronics inside to buzz to life.

🦋

"Fuck yeah! There we go!"

"Nice work," Namjoon commented proudly from the doorway.

"Score one for Namjoon & Emily," she cheered on her way back inside and, given the chance to **keep the flare gun for herself** or give it to Namjoon, she chose to **hand it off to Namjoon** instead.

🦋

"That should get someone's attention... and hopefully not someone who's a psychopath..." she hoped aloud, when Namjoon moved to the balcony and shot a single flare into the night sky.

When she reached the radio, however, Emily immediately got to twisting the tuning dial, before a man's voice suddenly spoke through the static.

_"--ranger service for Blackwood County. Over."_

So Namjoon quickly rejoined her inside the tower, and Emily pressed the push-to-speak button at the base of the microphone and attempted to get through to the ranger, "hello? Anyone there? _Hello_?? Please, say something if you're out there. _Please_! We need help! Over!"

_"Hello?"_

"Oh, my God! Thank _God_! We need help, _please_!!"

_"Hello? Is someone trying to contact us? This is the park ranger service for Blackwood County. I'm not getting your signal very well. Please, speak slowly and clearly. Over."_

"Please! Please, please, _please_ , help! Oh, my God! We're stuck on Blackwood Mountain and there's a maniac--"

_"If you can hear this, please, repeat your message, as I am unable to understand what you are saying. Over."_

"We need help! Please!!"

_"Hello? Please, identify yourself. Over."_

"My name is Emily..." she began, after taking a deep breath to calm down. "Hello??"

_"You're not coming through clearly. Please, repeat. Over."_

"We're on Blackwood Mountain... by the ski lodge..." Emily spoke slowly. "There's a killer and he's after us and he's... he's already killed one of our friends--oh, _God_ \--please, help! You've got to help us!!"

 _"I read you, ma'am,"_ the ranger replied, causing both Emily & Namjoon to release simultaneous sighs of relief. _"Please, do not leave your position. We will send out helicopters to get you as soon as the storm has subsided. Over."_

" _What_?? When?? How long??"

_"Not until dawn, at the earliest."_

" _Dawn_??" Emily shook her head incredulously, before she shrieked at the sudden sound of something pounding at the ladder hatch in the floor. "Oh, God!! He's here!! He's coming for us!!"

However, whatever had been pounding at the door gave up soon after realizing they weren't able to breach it, but it made sure to snap the thick, frozen wires that held the tower in place before it made its leave.

"OH, MY GOD!!!" Emily whimpered when the entire tower slowly began to tilt to one side. "NAMJOON, WHAT IS HAPPENING?!!"

"SHIT!!! DON'T MOVE!!!" 

Namjoon reached for her hand, but they stumbled away from one another when the tower steadily timbered forward, resulting in the way Emily promptly fell onto her front upon the windows. 

"NO!!! EMILY!!!" Namjoon shouted, from where he'd been dangling from the window at the opposite side of the horizontal tower.

When the radio slid from the table beside him, it would've pushed Emily through the window, had she not rolled to the side at the last second. However, the rest of the glass gave out beneath her, to which she screamed as she fell before she managed to catch herself on the railing of the balcony.

She took one glance down, into one of the several gaping mouths of the mines, before she looked back toward the top-heavy tower and vulnerably cried, "OH, _FUCK ME_!!!" as it slowly but surely began to tilt the rest of the way forward, thus trapping the couple inside the mines.

"Oh, fuck!!" Namjoon panted, as he let his shoes meet the ceiling of the now-upside-down room, in order to reach the exit door.

"NAMJOON!!!" Emily called for him, where she'd hooked her legs around the bars of the railing, in an attempt to keep from slipping. "OH, GOD, _NAMJOON_!!! HELP ME, PLEASE!!!"

"I'm coming!! I'm coming!!" he assured her, as he carefully maneuvered his way over to her through the wreckage. "This is pretty unsteady over here!!"

"Namjoon!!" she breathed, once she could see his head peaking out over the edge of the building up above her. "You've got to do something, _right now_! What are you _waiting for_?!"

"I'm thinking!! Let me think!!" he shook his head, as he tried his best to wrack his brain for a way out of this.

"Don't _think_ , you _idiot_!! Just _get me out of here_!!" she snapped.

"Is that why you still like Jeongguk?!" **Namjoon snapped back** , seemingly unable to help himself from doing so, despite the situation at hand. "He's a thinker!!"

🦋

"Namjoon!! I don't--!!"

"I saw you with him!!" **he persisted** , rather than choosing to **show concern**.

🦋

" _Christ_ , Namjoon, we were just _talking_!!" she rolled her eyes exasperatedly. "Oh, my God, this is _not the time_!!"

"Just tell me what's going on!!" Namjoon decided to **demand an explanation** , rather than **tell Emily not to talk to Jeongguk again**.

🦋

" _NOTHING_ , NAMJOON!!! _GOD_!!!"

"JUST ADMIT IT!!!"

"I-I..." Emily hesitantly began, before she admitted, "I was confused!!"

"So you fucked him?!" Namjoon asked her, to which she fervently shook her head and began to cry, and his features softened almost immediately.

"I didn't fuck him!!" she sobbed, then begged him, "please!! Please, get me off this goddamned tower?! Please, please, please!! Just _do something_!!"

"I... I'm trying to find the safest way to get to you..." he said. Then, after a short moment, he gestured to a wooden platform off to his left. " **I'm gonna jump**."

However, just as he moved to do so, the tower abruptly shifted, resulting in the way he roughly fell onto his front upon the platform, while Emily plummeted even deeper into the mines with a bloodcurdling scream.

🦋

"EMILY!!!" he shouted into the abyss, after he scrambled onto his feet to reach the edge of the platform.

**\---**

"He wasn't up there?" Hoseok asked Yoongi, after they'd both returned to the lodge to search for Jimin.

"I don't know. I didn't see him," Yoongi shook his head, as he descended the steps into the foyer. "He must've come down here," he gestured vaguely to the entirety of the ground floor.

"I haven't seen him either," Hoseok shook his head as well because he had just finished searching that level of the house in the meantime.

So Yoongi nodded his head toward the basement stairs, to which Hoseok took the hint and began to follow him down into (what they assumed to be) the lowest level of the lodge.

"Yoongi?" Hoseok captured the older man's attention as they walked. "I just wanted to say... what happened back there in the shed...? I know how hard that was... Jin was your _brother_ \--" his voice broke.

"Hobi, stop..." Yoongi stopped to wave a dismissive hand at him.

"No, I-I wanted to say, _thank you_ ," Hoseok clarified. "Thank you, for saving my life..."

"What was I gonna do?" Yoongi swallowed thickly when he turned to face him. "I... I couldn't let anything happen to you... I _couldn't_. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I just--" Hoseok sighed. "I know you and Jin were close, Yoongi..."

"Let's just find Jimin... okay?" Yoongi's voice was calm, but his eyes were pleading for him to drop the subject. "That's what we're doing now."

So Hoseok let it go, despite how certain he was that none of them would ever be able to forget what happened, and he followed Yoongi deeper into the basement.

When they rounded the corner near the boiler, however, Hoseok jumped backward at the sight of something moving at the far end of the hallway.

"Wait a minute--" he breathed, before he turned to look at Yoongi, "did you just see that??"

"Uh... see what?" Yoongi raised a brow at him.

" _That_ , Yoongi!!" he pointed toward the apparition he saw, " _that_!!"

"What is " _that_ "??" Yoongi asked exasperatedly.

"It was like--a see-through shape! Like a _ghost_!!"

"Oh, boy..." he huffed.

"I'm _serious_!!" Hoseok whined. "Why don't you believe me?? I said I saw it. Doesn't that count for _anything_??"

"We've been through Hell tonight," Yoongi reached for his shoulders to calm him down. "Okay? Your mind is fried. _My_ mind is fried. I... I don't even trust what _I've_ been seeing..."

"No!! You're wrong! I saw it, and I'm _sure_ , Yoongi!!" Hoseok **insisted** , rather than choosing to **concede**.

🦋

Yoongi just sighed at first, before he said, "alright, alright... maybe you did see something. Let's just... let's just keep our heads."

"Are we going crazy down here?" Hoseok asked, somewhat rhetorically.

"It's the only place left Jimin could be, Hobi..."

"I wish we could just go find everyone else and--"

"What if Jimin needs us?" Yoongi prompted then. "What if he's in trouble?"

"Oh, _God_..." Hoseok shook his head at the thought of Jimin being hurt as well.

"Let's go." 

**\---**

"Look, look, Yoongi!" Hoseok waved him over to a children's dollhouse that had been set up on a workbench. "You can see in the windows..." he said as he leaned in closer to survey the interior.

"See what? Tiny furniture?"

"No. It's a whole scene..." Hoseok explained, "with dolls and everything!"

Dolls, which they would soon come to discover, were replicas of themselves, as well as each of their friends.

"Yeah...?" Yoongi raised a brow at that, but when Hoseok tried to open it, only to discover that it was locked, he added, "huh. I guess you need a key, if you want to play around in there."

So Yoongi turned to continue searching the basement, but was interrupted when Hoseok spotted another apparition, clear as day, over Yoongi's shoulder.

"Wait!! Yoongi!! The ghost!!" he pointed, causing Yoongi to look up--from where he'd been pulling his phone from his pocket--just as it disappeared down the length of another hallway.

"What??"

"You didn't see it??"

"No--"

"You were looking at your _phone_ , you _dip_!!" Hoseok accused, once he spotted the device in Yoongi's hand, while he turned to face him again. "What are you _tweeting_?! Hashtag, _there's a frickin' ghost after us_?!"

"Hobi, calm down, okay? There's no ghost here. I mean, ghost of _what_??" he gave a brief chuckle at that. "You're freaked out because of what happened with Jin--"

"You're not paying attention!" Hoseok insisted. "I saw it! I saw a ghost... and it looked like Hannah! It looked like _Hannah_!!"

"What??"

"Or-Or maybe Beth??" Hoseok wasn't quite sure.

"Jesus, H..." Yoongi shook his head at that. "What do you think they followed us here from the seance?"

"I don't know! Maybe!"

"They didn't!" Yoongi argued, "because ghosts don't exist, okay?!"

"Okay, then who was talking to us at the seance, Yoongi?!"

"I don't know..." 

Hoseok shook his head, before he spotted the apparition _again_. "Oh, my God! _There_! Look _there_ , Yoongi!!" he spun Yoongi back around just in time to spot the ghostly figure. "You can't tell me you didn't see that!!"

"Wow..." Yoongi appeared dumbfounded. "That's..."

" _See_?!" Hoseok said, "you _do_ see it!"

"That's... I dunno, I-I just..." Yoongi tried to think of a logical explanation, while he quickly made his way down the hallway. "This is fucking crazy."

So Hoseok reluctantly followed and, when they reached the end of the hall, a painting suddenly flew off the wall to their left.

"What did that??" Hoseok asked, as if Yoongi would know, either.

"How does a picture just _jump off the wall_ like that?" Yoongi thought aloud and, as he knelt down to pick up the picture, Hoseok looked up at the wall to find a single key hanging in the place of the painting.

So **he collected the key** and turned to show Yoongi, only to spot the same apparition of one of the twins at the opposite end of the hall, near the dollhouse.

🦋

"Yoongi!!" he pointed, so Yoongi quickly looked and they watched, as she raised one of her arms and pointed directly at the toy house. "It's showing us the way!"

"Why--? What??" Yoongi tried to wrap his head around everything that was happening to them that night, while the ghost promptly disappeared, and Hoseok rushed over to the dollhouse.

After successfully unlocking and opening it, however, **they were met with a diorama of themselves** , as they had been pranking Hannah the year before.

🦋

"Whoa, whoa... what is going on here?" Yoongi shook his head at the sight of the unsettling scene.

"Oh, God--it's like--"

"It's not "like" anything. That's us," Yoongi said, "hiding there, waiting for Hannah last year."

"But... it's so _accurate_ ," Hoseok shook his head as well. "I mean, that's _exactly_ where I was sitting! A-And that's where Namjoon was--"

"This was setup by someone who was there," Yoongi concluded.

"O-Or someone or something that was _watching_ _us_..."

"Maybe it's a warning. I think someone... I think someone put this here to mess with us..."

"No, it has to be the ghost!" Hoseok replied. "It's trying to tell us that the maniac killed Hannah and Beth!"

"I think it's this _bastard_ , and he's... he's trying to fuck with our heads," Yoongi momentarily tapped his temple for emphasis.

"Why would he set this all up, Yoongi?"

"He's trying to tell us he's going to come after us, too."

Whether he agreed with Yoongi or not, Hoseok curiously reached to open the roof of the dollhouse, where he was met with the sight of a pink notebook.

"It's... it's Hannah's diary..." Hoseok said, before **he quickly got to flipping through the pages**.

🦋

**_January 9th._ **

**_Mom finally agreed._ **

**_The invitations are out! The party is gonna happen!!_ **

**_I HATE that I have to wait._ **

**_So far, Hobi, Namjoon, and Jimin have said definitely yes. Nothing from Jeongguk... :(_ **

Hoseok swallowed thickly before **he flipped to the next page**.

🦋

**_January 18th._ **

**_OMG!! Jeongguk confirmed!!_ **

**_He phoned Jin this afternoon! :D_ **

"This was... _before_ ," Hoseok realized, "a couple months before we all came up last year..."

Then, he read aloud, " _everyone being together here on the mountain is gonna be so awesome. Cozy fires, hot tubs, and OMG **Jeongguk**! I am so psyched to spend some time with him--_" Hoseok stopped reading and closed the book then because, "I can't read this!! It's so sad, Yoongi!!"

So he placed the book back where he found it and, soon after the pair turned to abandon the creepy dollhouse altogether, Hoseok spotted a book next to a sharp pair of scissors on one of the storage shelves.

"Hey, hey. Look at this," he gained Yoongi's attention once more. "Doesn't seem as old as a lot of the other stuff down here..."

"A catalogue... for industrial lightbulbs...?"

"That's random..." Hoseok said, while he flipped through the pages, before pausing on one with red ink marked inside. "Look; One of the bulbs is circled."

"That's a powerful bulb," Yoongi said after spotting the wattage printed next to the circled stock photo.

"Do you think it's the guy?" Hoseok asked as he set the book aside, and **he grabbed the scissors** as well, just to be on the safe side.

🦋

"Well, that makes sense..." Yoongi shrugged, before he carried on leading the way through the seemingly endless expanse of the basement's halls. "This place is _mammoth_!" he said in astonishment, as they were met with another set of stairs, leading downward.

"Yoongi, I don't know if I want to keep going..." Hoseok shook his head at the sight of the decrepit hallway Yoongi was now standing in, but he still followed him through it, nonetheless. "Did you know this was here?"

"Are you kidding me?" Yoongi laughed at that. "I had no idea this was here."

"I don't think I can take any more of this..."

"Yeah. I'm about at my limit here, too," Yoongi admitted.

"All I wanted to do was forget last year ever happened."

"To be honest, I'm not sure what Hannah thought she was doing..." Yoongi said.

"Yeah, well... you know how it is when you're crushing pretty hard on somebody..." Hoseok's cheeks turned pink and he couldn't seem to meet Yoongi's gaze while he spoke then.

"Great. So you're basically saying that we put a vulnerable friend in a terrible situation and, essentially, caused her to run away and never be heard from again?"

Rather than **dismissively say Hannah overreacted** , Hoseok chose to **be sympathetic** , instead.

"If it was you, don't you think you would've run away?" Hoseok asked. "I mean, who likes being made fun of?"

🦋

"People don't make fun of me," Yoongi shrugged.

"To your _face_..."

Yoongi scoffed. "What?"

"Yoongi, we made her look so _stupid_... in front of all her friends _and_ the guy she liked! I can't imagine doing anything worse to somebody!"

So Yoongi silently agreed, and they continued walking, until **Hoseok found a fresh stack of newspapers** on the grimy tile floor of (what appeared to be) the kitchen of an old hotel.

🦋

"Hey," he waved Yoongi over, as he briefly scanned the pages. "Are these fake? Why would anyone make fake newspapers??"

"That's a really good question..." Yoongi droned, before he turned toward _another_ set of stairs.

"You know what? No," Hoseok shook his head.

"Hobi--"

"No! I've had enough! I'm not going any further into this nightmare, Yoongi!"

"Hoseok... I understand, okay? I'm really freaked out, too. But if Jimin's down here all alone with a _maniac_ , and we _leave_? We're basically killing him ourselves."

"God damn it..." Hoseok **courageously agreed to carry on** , rather than **reluctantly resist**. "Why are you always right?"

🦋

"I'm not always right," Yoongi disagreed.

"Well, when you're right... you're right."

"I don't want to be right. I want to leave."

"No, no. We gotta find Jimin," Hoseok nodded determinedly and they kept walking. "But I'm getting a _really_ weird feeling from all this."

"What do you mean?"

"It just doesn't add up."

"What?"

" _Any_ of this! The _psycho_... all the crazy stuff going on down here," Hoseok listed off. "I just--I feel like we've missed something... something that'll make it all connect."

"I know what you mean, but... who knows what that could be?"

"Yeah... I guess you're right," Hoseok nodded once more, before he suddenly paused at the sight of a photographic collage of themselves, and each of their friends, hanging on the wall in front of them. 

"That's _us_..." he pointed out with a confused expression.

Yoongi's brows furrowed as well when he spotted the photo of Jin, who had Xs carved through the center of his eyes.

"What is this, like a fuckin' _hit list_?" he scowled, as Hoseok turned to investigate a closed door to their right. "Christ..."

"Oh, God..." Hoseok covered his mouth with his hand as he entered the room, and Yoongi was quick to join him, at which point they both came face to face with a projection of the video Namjoon took of their prank on Hannah from the year before. "Yoongi, it's from last year... the stupid prank..."

"Uh... this is a little uncomfortable, huh?" Yoongi cringed while they watched their mischievous faces be replaced by Hannah's naïve little grin, as she entered the guest room in hopes of meeting with Jeongguk.

"I've never seen this video..." Hoseok admitted. "She's just so..."

"So what?"

"She's so _excited_... and _alive_ ," he frowned.

"She has no idea..." Yoongi shook his head sorrowfully.

"Oh, jeez..." Hoseok pursed his lips distastefully when his amused face was shown next.

"Whoa... I forgot you were such a willing participant."

"I couldn't feel worse," **Hoseok was** **apologetic about what happened** , rather than **unrepentant**.

🦋

"You look like you were enjoying yourself."

"That's the worst part, isn't it?" Hoseok sighed. "We were just playing a joke... it was supposed to be _funny_."

"Yeah..."

"I never want to see this video _ever_ again..." Hoseok turned to leave the room and continue their trek through the bowels of the lodge. "I can't handle this--ghost, and these videos, and everything just flying around--"

"Calm down. Listen to me for a second," Yoongi said as he followed along. "This has gotta be someone messing with us."

"What?"

"Think about it," Yoongi began, "ghosts don't hook up video cameras. They don't play games."

"Then who would set all of this up? Seriously, I'm asking."

"I don't know," Yoongi sighed as well. "Maybe the same person who tied you up? And killed Jin..." he swallowed thickly.

"Right..."

"The same person who might have Jimin, right now."

"Maybe you're right."

"I wish I wasn't," Yoongi assured him, as they approached another door with, what appeared to be, a trail of blood leading up to it.

"Oh, shit... look at that."

" _Blood_?!" Hoseok squeaked.

"Might be Jimin's..." Yoongi warned him with an apologetic purse of his lips. "Let's see if we can get this door open."

So the pair moved to do so, and the heels of their shoes momentarily slipped along the slick surface of the floor, while they shoved the heavy door open with their backs pressed to it.

Just inside the door, was a mannequin hanging from a meat hook, dressed in Jimin's clothes.

"Jesus... are those Jimin's--?"

"Yeah. Those are Jimin's clothes..."

"Sick. I'd say that's just sick," Hoseok shook his head.

"So the psycho has been down here. For sure," Yoongi nodded.

"Do you think he's still down here?" Hoseok asked nervously, seeing as how Yoongi always seemed to be right.

"I hope not."

"Why is this thing even here?"

"Million dollar question--"

" _PLEASE, NO_!!!" a familiar, but disembodied voice could be heard screaming for mercy somewhere nearby, causing their hearts to race between their lungs.

"Jimin??" Hoseok rushed to the set of double doors at the other side of the room, only to stumble upon a body, facing away from them in a desk chair. 

So he hesitantly reached for the shoulder of the chair, turned it around, and gaped in horror at the sight of an unconscious Jimin, bound by the wrists and ankles, dressed in nothing but a towel.

"Jimin!!" Hoseok's eyes welled with tears. "Yoongi, is he _dead_?? Holy shit--"

"He's not dead."

"How do you know??"

"He's still breathing," Yoongi pointed out.

"What the hell is going on??"

"I think he's been knocked out."

"This is bad. This is _so_ bad!! We've got to get him out of here!!" Hoseok cried, and he turned to face Yoongi, just in time to watch the masked man from the kitchen crack him over the head.

Yoongi fell to the ground with a soft _thud_ , knocked out cold, so **Hoseok held the scissors he grabbed** **out in front of him for his defense**.

"GET BACK!!! STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!!!"

🦋

Then, the psycho grabbed his arm, so Hoseok stabbed him in the shoulder and attempted to make a run for it, only to be the next to lose consciousness with an uppercut.

"Live and learn!"

**\---**

"Ohh... _shit_..." 

Yoongi groaned at the throbbing sensation in his head, before he opened his eyes and realized where he was; Sitting face to face with Hoseok, who was bound to the chair across from him by both wrists.

"Hobi?! What did he do to you?!" Yoongi's brows furrowed angrily at the sight of the black eye Hoseok now sported.

"I-I think he hit me..." Hoseok winced when he tried, but ultimately failed, to reach for his own face.

"I'm gonna fucking murder him," Yoongi seethed.

Though, he found it a little odd when he realized his wrists were bound to one another, but not to his chair.

"What is this??" Hoseok asked, when he glanced down at the table between them to find a lone pistol resting idly in the center of it.

"This is _him_. The guy who killed Jin."

"No, Yoongi..." Hoseok shook his head with a pleading look, as if begging him to say he was only joking, before he began to cry. "Oh, my God no... we're gonna die, Yoongi! I don't think I'm ready to die--"

"No one is going to die."

"I wish I could tell you..." Hoseok sobbed then, "it's just not fair!!"

"What??" Yoongi asked. "Tell me what??"

"It's too late! Yoongi, what's the point?!"

"Stop it! Just say--"

"We're always talking around it!" Hoseok hung his head in shame, "and now--I mean... we've wasted _everything_!"

"Hoseok... none of it was wasted," Yoongi shook his head at that.

"What do you mean?" Hoseok met his gaze with confusion in his own.

" _Every second_ that I've spent with you, was the only thing I ever wanted to do with my time..." Yoongi admitted.

"What are you saying, Yoongi?" Hoseok cried even harder upon hearing that.

"I'm sorry, Hoseok. I should've told you how I felt..."

"B-But I swear, when we get out of this--" Yoongi stuttered.

However, he was interrupted by the deafening hum of a buzz saw whirring to life, from where it hung above the table.

"OH, GOD!!!" Hoseok gaped as it slowly but surely began to lower toward their heads.

"Hoseok!! I'll get you out of this!! I won't let you die!!" Yoongi promised above the noise.

 _"Hello there, my special little subjects,"_ the same disembodied voice from the last Jigsaw trap of an experiment abruptly filled the room.

"I'm so fucking scared, Yoongi..." Hoseok whimpered breathlessly, on the verge of passing out from shock.

"Don't be--" Yoongi tried to console him.

 _"Oh, you should be, Hobi,"_ the voice taunted them, _"because here's the twist; Yoongi has made one fatal choice already today..."_

"No!!" Hoseok weakly protested.

 _"Now he must make another. Yoongi, you can take that gun in front of you... and you can shoot Hoseok... or you can shoot yourself,"_ the voice lilted playfully. _"Whoever is left, can live! The choice is yours."_

So Yoongi immediately grabbed the gun, cocked it back, aimed at the saw above them, and attempted to break it by shooting it, but to no avail.

 _"Don't be so silly, Yoongi,"_ the voice chuckled.

Then, **Yoongi pressed the barrel of the pistol beneath his jaw** , to which Hoseok gasped.

🦋

"Wait!! Stop!! You can't do this, Yoongi!! It should be me!!" Hoseok pleaded with him, as he actively tried to break free from his bonds. "You chose to save me before!! Let me choose this time!! Let me choose to save you!!"

" _Fuck_ \--" Yoongi growled frustratedly.

"If I do one last thing in my life, let me do _this_!! Yoongi, _please_!!"

Despite his pleas, however, **Yoongi slipped his index fingertip in front of the trigger, and promptly pulled it**.

" _NO_!!!"

🦋


	9. 🦋SEVEN - VIOLENCE⚔️

**[VIOLENCE - 4 HOURS UNTIL DAWN]**

"Jimin... Jimin, wake up!"

Jimin's eyes slowly blinked open, from where he'd still been tied to a desk chair in the depths of the lodge's basement, as he heard someone whispering his name.

He craned his head around, despite the dull ache in his neck as he did so, and quickly took note of the familiar face that could be seen through a metal grate at the bottom of the wall.

"Jeongguk? Is that you...?" he slurred, as he was still coming down from the effects of whatever drug had been administered through that needle he was stabbed with earlier in the night.

"Shh!" Jeongguk immediately brought his index finger up to his lips. "Get over here!" he whisper-yelled.

So Jimin tried his very best to scoot the rolling chair over to the wall, considering his ankles were bound.

Once he was close enough, he spun around so his wrists--that were bound behind the back of the seat--were close enough for Jeongguk to reach through the grate and cut through the tight rope with his machete.

"Ow... ow!" Jimin yelped and, once his hands were finally free, he momentarily rubbed at his wrists that were raw and red, before Jeongguk passed the blade up to him, so he could free his ankles as well.

" _Damn_ , those things were tight..." Jimin winced, as he stood from the chair and lowered onto his knees to speak to Jeongguk through the grate, being careful not to flash him as he did, considering the fact that he was still only dressed in a towel. "Oh, Jeongguk, thank _God_ you found me..."

"It's okay. You're okay," Jeongguk quietly assured him.

So, rather than **concernedly ask where Taehyung was** , **Jimin curiously asked how he ended up down there**.

"I don't understand... h-how did you get here? How did you find me?"

🦋

"There's some fuckin' maniac up here on the mountain--"

"Yeah. I've noticed," Jimin bounced his brows at that.

"H-He lives in this, like-- _web of tunnels_... I was down there trying to get out, and then I found this grate, and I saw you."

"Listen; This guy you're talking about? He _attacked_ me," Jimin spoke through gritted teeth, before he told Jeongguk how, "he showed me these videos, too... and one of them showed Jin being _killed_! Just-- _ripped apart_ by this huge fucking saw blade..." his voice broke, while Jeongguk's face scrunched up in horror.

" _Jesus Christ_..." he shook his head frustratedly, "what the _fuck_ is going on around here??"

Jimin shook his head as well, feeling quite defeated already, as he remained trapped inside walls of cinderblock.

"There's a door here," Jeongguk pointed it out then, to which Jimin finally noticed said door, where his backpack had been hooked to the knob. "It won't open. Can you unlock it from your side?" he asked.

So Jimin moved to quickly swing the backpack onto his shoulder, opened the door, and smiled bright when he was met with Jeongguk's relieved face on the other side of it.

"Hey," Jimin rushed over to be welcomed into Jeongguk's open arms.

"Hey..." Jeongguk sighed while he just held Jimin there, allowing for both of them to take a moment to just breathe and try to ground themselves.

When they inevitably pulled away, Jimin gave a brief laugh and said, "jeez. You look like Hell..." despite his concern caused by the sight of Jeongguk's disheveled appearance; The thin layer of dirt that coated his skin, the rips and tears in his clothes, the blood on his face, among other depressing feats.

"Nice to see you, too," he playfully scoffed at that. However, when Jimin was suddenly walking past him, he asked, "what are you doing?"

"Well, the towel didn't turn out to be the best outfit for fighting off killer maniacs," he answered simply, as he set his backpack on the ground and, when Jeongguk just kept staring, Jimin raised a brow at him, "do you mind, Jeongguk?"

"Oh!" Jeongguk quickly turned on his heel to stand guard and give Jimin some privacy. "Right. My bad."

"Okay. Done," Jimin announced, once he was fully dressed and zipping up his backpack, so Jeongguk turned to face him again. 

"Let's put this thing to bed," he nodded determinedly.

"Amen to that," Jeongguk nodded in agreement, before a pair of muffled voices could be heard, bleeding through the walls.

"What is that?" Jimin asked.

"Is that _crying_??" Jeongguk guessed, before they began to jog down the hallway together, following the distressing sounds toward their source; A doorway, that they quickly busted open with the combined force of their shoulders.

"NO!!!" Hoseok could be heard (and now seen) screaming at the masked maniac, as he approached the table he & Yoongi had been sat around, "GET AWAY!!!"

Yoongi, who had just chosen to sacrifice himself to save Hoseok, felt quite confused when he opened his eyes to realize that he was still alive--still trapped in this twisted game--with Hoseok sitting before him.

So Yoongi aimed the pistol directly at the maniac, and proceeded to empty the clip, only to realize that none of the shots were doing any sort of damage.

"Oh, Yoongi..." the masked man shook his head at him. "Yoongi, Yoongi, Yoongi..."

"What the fuck?!" he shouted.

"You've heard of blanks before," the man said with a wry laugh, before he was suddenly reaching to remove his mask.

Then, their friend Seokjin--whom they were fairly certain had been _murdered_ \--smiled right in their faces, as he watched each of them gape in bafflement.

**\---**

"Oh, God..." Emily gasped once she opened her eyes and realized where she was; Trapped within the mines, but dangling upside-down from the collapsed fire tower, by a cord that had been caught around her ankle. 

"NAMJOON!!! NAMJOON!!!" she shrieked, but quickly realized it was no use, as he was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, my God..." she breathed, while she tried her best to lean upward and unhook the cord, but she simply wasn't able to reach it.

So she looked around and, after taking note of a platform in front of her, Emily attempted to swing herself back and forth, until her ankle was slipping out of the cord's hold, and her hands were reaching out to catch herself on the edge of the platform.

"Alright..." Emily panted, before she pulled herself up and rested on her back for a moment, to try and catch her breath.

That's when she looked up at the moonlit sky, through the cavern the fire tower had fallen into, and her lips parted when she realized said tower was steadily grinding downward, both into the mines and toward her resting figure.

So Emily immediately sat up and began to scoot away from the edge of the platform, when a hot metal rod came tumbling down from the wreckage and smacking down against her right kneecap, leaving a deep gash in the skin and leading her to walk around with a limp from then on.

"Oh, _God_..." she whimpered, when she stood and began to rip the fabric of her sweater at the hemline, in order to wrap it around a wooden post and create a torch, using the crackling flames that were caused by the fire tower's downfall. 

"Here goes 600 bucks..." she muttered, "better be worth it. I looked great in this top--" all before she turned, lost her footing, and fell through a gap in the ground, bringing her sliding even deeper into the darkness of the mines.

"Oh, my God," she cried, as her torch was put out and she couldn't see a thing, until **she brought out her phone and switched on the flashlight** , only to be met with the sight of several human skulls. 

🦋

" _AHH_!!!" Emily screamed while she backed away, and she even attempted to climb up the wall of the hole she'd fallen through, but it was way too slick and way too steep. 

"Oh, my God. Oh, my _God_!" she sobbed, as she was forced to carry on through the cavern, which was lined with the skeletons of several humans, ranging in all different shapes and sizes.

Among the scattered remains, was a pair of glasses that Emily instantly recognized.

"Hannah..." she shook her head sorrowfully at the sight of the cracked lenses within their bent frame.

Then, as **she raised her flashlight toward the wall in front of her** , she anxiously gulped at the sight of several tally marks--as well as the date, _02.02.19_ \--carved into the grimy stone.

🦋

"That's exactly a year ago..." Emily thought aloud, before she noticed a pair of wooden planks that had been fashioned into a makeshift cross.

So she curiously lifted it up, to find--

**BETH  
2.2.19**

\--carved into the front of it.

"Beth?!" Emily immediately dropped the wood, as if it had burned her hand, and backed away from it, leading her to back straight into a boulder.

She whipped around then, and her brows furrowed at the sight of a mucky purple sweater, that had been wrapped around it like a torso, and something hairy that was resting on the very top of it, almost like a head.

However, as **Emily felt compelled to reach out and turn the hairy object around** , she instantly regretted her decision to do so, as she came face-to-face with the decomposed head of Beth herself.

🦋

"OH, GOD!!! _BETH_!!!" Emily sobbed even harder, when she fell on her ass and landed among the other remains, "NO!!!"

Then, she scrambled to get back onto her feet, before she ran away as fast as she possibly could.

When she rounded a corner, Emily was met with the promising sight of the mining elevator, as well as _another person_ , who quickly approached her once they spotted her.

"Shh!" the man's shushing was muffled by the bandana he wore, and his eyes were shielded by the rounded lenses of his goggles, as he reached for her hand and attempted to get her to calm down.

But **Emily understandably panicked, and proceeded to knee him between the legs** , before she sprinted away from him and hid behind a nearby boulder.

🦋

The man easily found her, however, as he knew these mines like the back of his hand.

**\---**

" _Jin_?!" Yoongi gaped.

Seokjin laughed hysterically at the looks on his friends' faces as they were glaring at him in that moment.

"Jin!!" Jimin shook his head in confusion, before his brows furrowed in anger along with the rest of them.

Then, as Jin kept laughing, Jeongguk's jaw set tight, before he yelled, " _JIN_!" in an attempt to shut him up.

"Oh, _very_ good! Every one of you got my name! And after all you've been through! Good! Good, good, good!" Seokjin clapped his hands with a proud smile, before he began to maniacally ramble.

"I mean, how does it feel? _How does it feel_?! Do you enjoy feeling _terrorized_?! _Humiliated_?! _Panicked_?! All those emotions that my sisters got to feel one year ago! Only guess what?! They didn't get to just _laugh it off_!! No!! _Nope_!! They're _gone_!!"

"I don't know if you noticed this, Jin, but _NONE OF US ARE LAUGHING_!!" Jeongguk shouted.

"Oh, come on! Why the long faces? Come on!" Jin replied to that. "It's good to get the heart racing every now and then, right? And race they did. I mean, every one of you! Just pitter-pat, pitter-pat!"

As his friends shared similar looks of exasperation, Seokjin explained how _he was the maniac all along_ , and that just about every single horrifying thing that had happened to them that night, was all thanks to _him_.

"I hope you appreciated my little phantasmagorical spectacle! I mean, no detail too small! No opportunity missed! It was such a delight to play the puppet master to all of your Pavlovian panic!" 

Jin's wicked grin remained plastered on his face, even as he mentioned, "all that gore? I mean, there was gore _galore_!! Fake _bodies_... I mean, _God_ , that shit was expensive!! And no retakes!! Nope!! Only _double_ takes!! _Oh_ , you should've seen your faces!! Hook line and sinker, for every little stinker!!"

"Jin... why are you doing this?" Jimin stared back at him with a disheartened expression, as none of them had ever seen their friend behave like this before.

"Don't even ask this sick little shit!" Jeongguk shook his head at that. "He's got no clue! He's out of his fucking mind!"

"Well, he's _definitely_ off his _meds_ ," Yoongi quite easily discerned.

"Aw, come on, you guys! Revenge is the _best_ medicine!!" Seokjin seemed as though he was genuinely trying to convince them to believe him at that point, and that terrified them all to no end.

"You're _done_!" Jeongguk snapped.

"Guk, he's _sick_ ," Yoongi defended his closest friend, despite his indifference toward him in that moment.

"What?" Jin's brows suddenly furrowed in confusion. "Come on! You guys are all gonna thank me when you become internet sensations!"

"Wait, _what_?" Yoongi's brows furrowed as well then.

"Oh, you better believe this little puppy is going viral! I mean, we got _unrequited love_! We got--we got _blood_!" Jin listed off enthusiastically. "I don't think there's enough hard drives in _China_ to count all the views we're gonna get, you guys!"

" _What are you talking about, you ass hat_?!" Jeongguk stared up at the ceiling, with his fists exasperatedly clenched at his sides, as if he was internally struggling not to march over and knock Seokjin's lights out.

After a short moment of silence, however, he looked Jin straight in the eye and said, "Taehyung is fucking _DEAD_!!"

Seokjin's face immediately drained of color.

"W-What...?" he asked quietly.

"Did you not hear me?!" Jeongguk narrowed his eyes at Jin then, as he rounded the table to stand before him, with a menacing gait. "Taehyung is _dead_!! And you are gonna _FUCKING PAY_ , YOU _DICK_!!!"

With that, Jeongguk pistol-whipped Seokjin in the face, knocking the older man out cold.

**\---**

"Guys!" Jin tried, as Jeongguk & Yoongi had tied his wrists behind his back, and forced him out of his own family's lodge.

They began to guide him out to his father's workshop, where he'd trapped Hoseok and forced Yoongi to decide, between the two of them, who would get to live and who would have to die.

"Seriously, this is crazy, you know?!"

"Shut up," Jeongguk shoved Jin forward by the forearm, causing him to land on his knees in the snow, before he scrambled to get back onto his feet.

"Why did you have to hit him, man?" Yoongi shook his head, in regards to Hoseok's black eye, when Jin turned to face the two of them. " _Huh_?! Why'd you have to _fucking hit him_?!" he asked, before he drew his fist back and vengefully punched Jin in the eye.

"AH!" Jin hissed, when he was knocked to his knees again with the sudden blow, "what are you talking about?!"

"You punched Hoseok, you piece of shit!" Yoongi attempted to jog Jin's memory, while he struggled to stand again.

"I-I got so mad--"

"Well, you don't just _hit people_!"

"Dude. Yoongi. Bro--"

"And I'm not your _bro_ ," Yoongi scoffed, while Jeongguk grabbed hold of Jin's bicep, turned him around, and forced him to keep walking.

"Where are we going?" Jin asked then. "Where are you guys taking me?!"

"Locking you up," Jeongguk answered simply, with a mocking little, " _bro_."

"What?!"

"So you can't do anything _stupid_ before we call the police in the morning."

"Come on! I didn't do anything!"

"Are you serious??" Yoongi shook his head once more, despite the fact that, by that point, he was certain that Jin believed he was completely innocent.

"You're a goddamned _murderer_ is what you are," Jeongguk muttered.

"I-I didn't do it!" Jin tried again. "Jeongguk, _please_! Just listen to me, man! I _did not hurt Taehyung_!"

Then, rather than **scold Jin** , by saying he deserved what was coming to him, **Yoongi chose to dismiss him**.

"You know what, man? You need to shut up."

🦋

"Hey, come on, Cochise!" Jin pleaded with Yoongi. "We're partners!"

"Stop. Don't say that."

"Fine! Be a _dick_!" he spat, while he began to struggle and fight against Jeongguk's hold. "You only see what you wanna see! You're _blind_!"

"Stop talking!" Jeongguk commanded, as he kicked Jin in the back of the knee, causing him to fall face-first into the snow in front of them. 

"It's not my fault you suckers can't take a joke--" Jin suddenly yelped, when Jeongguk abruptly began to press his arms down against his spine.

"Aw, did I hurt you?" Jeongguk asked him with a condescending little grin.

Then, he pulled his revolver from the back of his jeans and swiftly brought the barrel up to Jin's temple. 

"Did you feel a little bit of pain? Well, I am _so_ _SORRY_!!" Jeongguk sarcastically apologized, as he pressed down a little harder on the man's arms.

"Jesus, dude..." Yoongi breathed at the sight.

"Stop it!" Jin begged for Jeongguk to let up, so he reluctantly stood with a frustrated shout. "Jeongguk, I can't even begin to tell you how _sorry I am_ that something happened to Taehyung, but I _swear_!! I _swear to you_ , I have no idea what happened to him!!"

With that, Jeongguk just shook his head in disbelief, while **Yoongi simultaneously agreed that they couldn't trust Jin**.

"Jin, be honest with me," he began. "Do you _really_ expect us to trust you, for a _single goddamned second_ , after all the shit you just put us through??"

🦋

Seokjin just chuckled quietly at that, "why can't we all just get along?" as a wicked smile spread on his face once again. "OW!! DAMN IT!!"

Jeongguk yanked Seokjin back onto his feet by his wrists, and he reached up to grab a fistful of his hair so Jin would listen as he seethed, " _we're not dicking around_."

"This is _not_ how this was supposed to go down! You're just a bunch of _bullies_! You can't just hang a guy out to dry like this, guys!" Jin slurred as Jeongguk shoved him through the doorway of the workshop. "Not like--Not like you got the guts to really _do anything_ about it, anyways!"

Instead of choosing to **aggressively tell Seokjin to shut up** , **Yoongi got a bit defensive**.

"Oh, shut it. You're the biggest coward here."

🦋

"Uh huh?" Jin feigned interest. "I _did_ something! I made you believe in the world I created! I showed you parts of yourself you were too afraid to visit!"

"You _manipulated_ us. You _tricked_ us. You hurt your friends and you did it all while you _hid in the shadows_! You're a _coward_ , Jin. That's all you are," Yoongi said, once Jeongguk forced him down onto a chair.

"Stay still," Jeongguk said, while he held him down, and Yoongi proceeded to tie his wrists behind the pillar he was leaned against.

"Right, right," Jin nodded understandingly then. "Can't tie 'em up if they just wiggle around! Leave me a little wiggle room, huh?!" he giggled, while he flailed around in his seat, just to make it that much harder on them.

"What does it take to _shut you up_?!" Jeongguk growled.

However, Jin carried on talking to himself, once Yoongi was finished tying him in place, and Jeongguk was taking a few steps back in an earnest attempt to keep himself from kicking Seokjin's teeth in.

"I can't wiggle around! Plastic ties; _That's_ where it's at. Yeah. Plastic ties, plastic ties! _Way_ more effective for hostage type scenarios. Guaranteed for at least _three_ hostages, or _your money back_!"

"What the fuck is he talking about??" Jeongguk asked, but Yoongi just shrugged, as he joined him near the door of the shop.

"This is hard to watch..." Yoongi shook his head.

"He ever say this kind of shit before??"

"No," Yoongi answered, "I've never seen him like this..."

"Yoongi... and Hoseok..." Jin suddenly tilted his head, gaining their attention once more. "Yoongi's an _ass_... Hoseok's a _dumb dumb_..."

"I'm sorry, what'd you say?" Yoongi narrowed his eyes at him.

"I said you're a _dummy_ , dummy!!" Jin cackled.

"What is _wrong_ with you??"

"Ohh, _Hoseok_!!" he mocked Yoongi then. "I never imagined in my wildest dreams that you liked me!!"

"Stop," Yoongi said, while Jin began to whine.

"You know what that sound is?" he asked Yoongi rhetorically. "That's the sound of _never kissing Hoseok, you pussy_!!"

"Stop!"

"Yeah, you know what? You might as well let Hobi sleep with Guk! I mean, at least he's got some notches on his belt, you know?!" Seokjin continued to carelessly laugh at his friend's expense. 

"He'll _TREAT. HIM. RIGHT_!!" he emphasized each of the last three words with an aggressive thrust of his hips. "YOU'RE FUCKING _PATHETIC_ , YOONGI!!"

"I'm about to knock his fucking head off," Yoongi told Jeongguk, who surprised himself even, when he reached to hold Yoongi back.

"Don't listen to him. It's not worth it," Jeongguk told him quietly.

"Hey, Guk! Guk, Guk, Guk, Guk, Guk!" Jin annoyingly repeated the nickname until Jeongguk finally snapped at him.

"What?!"

"What happened with Taehyung, man?"

"You _know_ what happened," Jeongguk's jaw clenched once again, along with his fists at his sides.

"No... no, I don't," Jin answered as-a-matter-of-factly. "I've got a problem, Guk; I don't... remember killing Tae."

Jeongguk just scoffed at that, " _Christ_."

"No, I-I feel... like I would remember killing him, you know? He's just so _soft_..." then, with a smirk, Jin added, "and he's probably _really fuckin' tight_..."

" _SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH_!!!" Jeongguk pulled his gun on Jin in the next second.

So, rather than choosing to **hit Jin** , Yoongi chose to **disarm Jeongguk** instead because he was right; It wasn't worth it.

🦋

"Seriously?" Jeongguk glared at Yoongi, after he knocked the revolver from his hand.

"What??"

"Did you think I was gonna shoot him??"

"I-I don't know!"

"Come on, Yoongi, you know me better than that," Jeongguk shook his head in disappointment.

"Alright, well, next time give me a heads up, alright??" Yoongi exasperatedly compromised.

"Oh, you poor little piggies! You can't even get your good cop/bad cop routine to work! Leave it to the pros, bros!" Jin said with a smug little grin.

"Why don't you go back to the lodge--make sure everyone's alright," Jeongguk suggested to Yoongi, as they both tried their best to ignore Jin's remarks. "I'll stay here with this _lunatic_ until morning."

"Ooh~! Sleepover!" Jin chirped excitedly. "Can we order pizza??"

"You sure you're okay...?" Yoongi asked Jeongguk then, as he wasn't entirely sure if it was the best idea to leave the younger man alone with Jin, especially while he was still acting like this.

"They'll wanna know everything's fine," Jeongguk told him, without taking his eyes off Jin.

"Yeah. You're right," Yoongi nodded in agreement.

Then, with one last glance at Seokjin, Yoongi was turning to exit the workshop with a disheartened shake of his head.

"See you in the morning," he bid Jeongguk goodbye, before he reluctantly made his leave.


	10. 🦋EIGHT - REVELATION🔥

**[REVELATION - 3 HOURS UNTIL DAWN]**

"NO!!! STAY AWAY!!!" Emily cried out when the stranger of a man in the mines grabbed a hold of her forearm.

"Shh!" he desperately tried to get her to be, "quiet!" and both of them were instantly muting themselves at the sound of someone or _something_ shrieking nearby.

"Use these!!" the stranger reached into his coat for a few handheld flares, before he quickly handed them over to her. "Get the hell out of here, _now_!!"

Emily didn't need to be told twice.

While the man stayed behind, she booked it in the opposite direction--lighting up a flare along the way--and ran until she could no longer breathe.

Then, she doubled over and panted for a moment, before she raised the flare out in front of her to find a bright red sign that read;

**BLACKWOOD MINES**

**THIS AREA OF THE MINES HAS RECENTLY SUFFERED STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE**

**PLEASE CONTACT FOREMAN:  
H. TANNER**

**REFER TO MAP 7A-3 FOR MORE DETAILS**

"Come on..." Emily shook her head at that, as if to say she couldn't catch a break, which was only proven further when she stepped into the tunnel leading back to the elevator.

Some sort of lanky, grey-skinned, humanoid creature began to charge her and, as it shrieked from behind her, needless to say, Emily was quick to run for her life.

She reached the mining elevator surprisingly fast, considering her injured knee, but she wasn't even thinking about that while she was pulling the lever to her left, sending the elevator upward.

Then, once she was finally above ground, Emily was running uphill along the mining conveyors until she reached the top level of the mineshaft.

She closed and locked the rickety wooden doors behind her, but as she took a moment to try and catch her breath, **whatever creature had been chasing her around** , breached one of the decrepit planks in the door, and ** _bit her in the shoulder_**.

🦋

Emily cried out from the searing heat of the pain she felt spreading throughout her nerves, but she managed to push the creature away, before it abruptly shoved her out of the mineshaft and sent her falling several feet, into the thick powdery snowfall below.

It was a miracle that she hadn't sustained any further injury from the fall, let alone that she even _survived_ it, but--as the creature remained perched at the top of the mineshaft, glaring down at her with a nasty shriek--Emily felt extremely grateful for that miracle, as she turned to make her way back to the lodge.

**\---**

"Ah shit," Jeongguk cursed, when he could suddenly hear Emily screaming, somewhere outside the workshop. He suspiciously glanced back at Jin then. "What _now_?"

"LET ME IN!!! LET ME IN!!!" Emily cried, as she pounded against the front door of the lodge with both fists.

"Is that--?" Hoseok began, as everyone in the lodge immediately rushed to the door.

"It's Em!!" Jimin exclaimed when he spotted her silhouette through the privacy glass and, when Yoongi reached the door first, he said, "let her in!! Quick!!"

Immediately after she was let inside, Emily was pleading for them to, "SHUT THE DOOR! OH MY, GOD-- _SHUT THE DOOR_!!"

She rushed over to Hoseok & Jimin then, who watched in concern as she trembled, from both fear and the icy temperature of her snow-covered clothes.

"Em, are you alright?" Yoongi asked once he shut the door behind her.

"I didn't think that I'd make it!!" she panted, as Jimin & Hoseok led her over to the couch by the fireplace.

"You were screaming bloody murder," Yoongi thought aloud.

"Are you okay?" Jimin asked, while he brushed Emily's hair over her ears, to get it out of her face.

"You look totally wiped," Hoseok frowned sympathetically.

"Th-There was something--" Emily stuttered out, while Jimin gently cupped her face in his hands to try and calm her down. "A _monster_!! It's a _monster_!!" she cried.

"Em, are you okay?" Yoongi calmly knelt down before her, choosing to **show concern for her wellbeing** , rather than **confusedly ask her about the monster**.

🦋

"I-I'm fine--I just need to calm down," she took a deep breath with Jimin, when he softly instructed her to breathe slowly, in then out. "I-It was moving s-so damn _fast_ \--"

"What?" Yoongi asked.

"I j-just had to get away--" she shook her head.

"Away from what?" Jimin asked her in the same hushed tone.

"Th-There was this _thing_!! W- _Whatever_ it was--!!"

"Em, you can relax..." he said, "Jin was just messing with us, but we--"

"You're not listening to me!"

"Wait, Em--where's Namjoon?? Is he okay??" Yoongi asked her then.

"I don't wanna talk about that _fucking sack of shit_ ," she spat, while she pushed herself up onto her feet and began to pace.

"Wow..." Yoongi's brows raised at her unexpected outburst.

"He left me!" Emily explained with a scowl. "He just fucking _abandoned me_ when I was hanging off that goddamned tower, about to _die_ \--"

"What tower??" Jimin shook his head in confusion.

"--and then I fell into this fucking _mineshaft_ and he was just _gone_!!" Emily finished her story, despite Jimin's question.

"Whoa, whoa--what mineshaft??" Yoongi shook his head as well, as he was clearly trying his best to wrap his head around all of this.

"I-I was walking down there, and i-it was dark, and I found this... _pile_... and--" Emily's eyes welled with tears, "--there was _Beth's head_!"

"Wait, _what_???"

"Beth's head! I found it!" she cried, causing Hoseok to shift uncomfortably in his spot on the couch.

"Oh, my God!" Hoseok whimpered, as he brought his feet up onto the cushion, so he could hold his knees to his chest.

" _Are you serious_???" Jimin's eyes widened.

" _Yes, I'm serious_!!" Emily stared back at him incredulously. "I think they fell down there..." she told them.

"Jesus Christ..." Yoongi bowed his head for a moment.

"But the worst part is... I don't think Hannah died," she added, "l-like, from the fall... not right away..."

"What do you mean??" Hoseok asked.

"I don't know, I feel like she was just _down there_ , starving to death... for _weeks_ ," she said, as she recalled the tally marks she found on the wall, "when we were all up here looking for her... we had no idea!"

"That's fucking horrible..." Yoongi muttered into his hands that were hiding his face in a silent prayer.

"Listen! I-In the tower, there was a radio, and I-I got through to someone, but that was right when the tower collapsed!"

" _Em_!!" Jeongguk's voice could be heard from the foyer, before he could be seen running into the main room. He rushed straight over to Emily, so he could pull her into a tight hug. "You made it!"

"Oh, God, _Jeongguk_!" Emily held him tight, before he was suddenly pulling away from her.

"What about Namjoon?" he asked, as he glanced around the room to find that he still wasn't present.

"We're trying to figure that out," Hoseok chimed in.

"Yeah, and there was this "monster" that was chasing her?? I--" Yoongi added, with a stressful shake of his head, before there was a sudden knock at the front door. "Whoa..."

"Who the fuck could that be??" Jeongguk whisper-yelled, as they all stared at the door.

"Jin?" Hoseok guessed.

"Tae?" Yoongi thought aloud next, earning a heavy sigh from Jeongguk at his side.

"It's not Tae..."

"Sorry, man..."

"But we should check it out."

"I got your back," Yoongi agreed and, with that, the pair quickly rejoined one another in the foyer. 

Then, Jeongguk aimed his revolver at the silhouette on the opposite side of the door, and Yoongi took a deep breath.

"Okay. I'm gonna open the door," Yoongi said. "You ready?"

"Uh huh."

"You sure?"

" _Yep_ ," Jeongguk popped the "p", but after holding his stance for a brief moment of silence, he glanced over at Yoongi with a bored expression. "Just do it already. Whoever it is has probably gone by now."

"U-Unless you want me to take the gun?" Yoongi suggested, with a hopeful hand held out toward the younger man.

"No, no. I think that's less good," Jeongguk said, before he nodded his head toward the door. "You do the door. I got the gun."

So Yoongi audibly sighed, before he finally moved to twist the knob, but he was knocked on his ass, by whoever had been waiting outside, immediately after.

"Shit!"

"Whoa!" Jeongguk chuckled a bit nervously, at the sight of a stranger, standing before them in the doorway, wielding a _flamethrower_ of all things. "Hold on there!" 

He raised his free hand up toward the man then, only for him to grab the barrel of the revolver and force it out of Jeongguk's grip.

"Ah!" Jeongguk winced at the way his wrist was uncomfortably twisted in the process, before he finally let go and backed away. "Alright, alright! Just--take it easy, grandpa."

"Okay. Everybody just calm down," the stranger shook his head in annoyance, as he removed his bandana and goggles, to reveal a frostbitten nose, an unkempt beard, and three jagged scars running through his grey, right eye. "Move over there. Go on, move! Let me say what I came to say."

So Yoongi & Jeongguk moved back over to the fireplace, where they sat upon the couch with Hoseok, Emily, & Jimin, as if they were a group of grandchildren gathering around their elder for story time.

"I came here to tell you what you're up against being back on this mountain," the man muttered, as he tossed his bag down and stood before the fireplace. "You never should've returned. I don't know why you did, after what happened last year."

"You mean with Hannah & Beth??" Hoseok asked him.

"Yeah, how could you know without being involved??" Yoongi fixed the older man with a look of suspicion.

"Or _responsible_?" Jimin bravely added.

"You hold onto your horses," the man's brows furrowed with their accusations. "I don't take kindly to you kids comin' up here to my mountain--"

" _Your_ mountain?" Jeongguk scoffed at that. "I'm sure the Kims would be _very_ surprised to hear that."

The stranger just offered him a brief laugh in response.

"Well, this mountain don't belong to me--that's true," he nodded. "But it don't belong to the _Kims_ , neither. This mountain belongs to the _Wendigo_."

"Who??" Yoongi asked.

"What's he talking about??" Hoseok shook his head at that.

"The hell's a _Wendigo_??" Jeongguk inquired as well.

"Let's hear him out," Jimin suggested.

"Not like we have a choice," Jeongguk sighed, before they focused their attention back onto the mysterious man in front of them.

"I'm only gonna tell you this once," he said, "it doesn't matter to me if you believe it or not. I got reasons I wanna get it off my chest--"

"See??" Jeongguk stood from his seat then. "I told you! He's guilty as shit! Guilty of _somethin_ '!"

"Shut up, Gukkie," Jimin huffed.

"There is a curse that dwells in these mountains," the stranger continued, while Jeongguk crossed his arms over his chest. "Should any man or woman resort to cannibalism in these woods... the spirit of the Wendigo shall be unleashed. You're gonna need to find somewhere safe."

"The basement might be okay," Jimin thought aloud.

"Okay," the man nodded. "Get down there. _Now_. _All of you_. And wait."

"What? Why? For how long?"

"Until dawn..." Emily relayed the message she'd received from the ranger in the fire tower.

"Oh, God. Guys??" Jeongguk suddenly began to panic, "I ran off and left Jin when I heard screaming..."

"Where did you leave him?" the stranger asked.

"In the shop..." 

Jeongguk swallowed thickly, when the man immediately pursed his lips and bluntly stated, "your friend will already be dead."

"No," Yoongi stood from the couch then. " _No_. He _can't_ _be_! W-We were _just with him_!"

"A lot can happen quickly on this mountain."

"No," Yoongi repeated determinedly, "I'm gonna go get him."

"You can't go out there, Yoongi!" Hoseok gaped at him. 

"I'm supposed to be his best friend... a-and I let him down!"

" _No_. He let _you_ down, Yoongi," Hoseok argued. "He let _all of us_ down--"

"I don't care," Yoongi decided. "I'm going to get him."

"I'll go with you," the stranger volunteered.

"I don't need your help."

"Going alone is suicide."

"Fine..." Yoongi reluctantly gave in.

"The rest of you, get down to the basement," the man waved them off. "Be safe. Don't go outside again, until we're back."

Then, he took a step closer to Yoongi.

"You don't seem to understand the magnitude of the situation."

"I'm going to get Jin," Yoongi restated his plan.

"No, _I'm_ going to get Jin. _You're_ going to help me. Do you understand?"

"Uh... yeah. I think so."

"You need to follow me and do _everything_ I tell you."

As they moved toward the front door, he reached for the shotgun he had slung over his shoulder and handed it over to the younger man. 

"This is the end you point toward the thing you want to kill," he gestured to the barrel.

"I know how to use a shotgun, man..." Yoongi assured him with a purse of his lips.

"Hey..." Hoseok easily caught their attention, after he joined them near the door. "Come back safe," he told Yoongi.

Then, **Hoseok bravely leaned in to kiss him** , as he was worried by the possibility of this being their final goodbye.

🦋

"We need to hurry, son," the stranger awkwardly rushed Yoongi along, so he reluctantly leaned away from Hoseok's kiss.

"I'll uh... I'll see you soon..." Yoongi promised him, somewhat in a daze, before he was turning to exit the lodge with the stranger. 

**\---**

"S-So tell me," Yoongi began, as he followed the man down the trail to reach the shed. "You're the expert on these "things." What's uh... what's a guy gotta know?"

"You just be careful and follow my lead."

"How many times do I need to shoot it with this shotgun before it's dead?"

"Well... you'd be shooting a _long_ time," the man answered honestly.

"Y-You mean _this_ won't even kill it??" he gripped the shotgun a bit tighter.

"No. But it'll slow it down."

"Well, how do you _kill it_??"

"They don't like fire. They fear it. You see, their _skin_... it's like _tough armor_ , unless you burn it off first."

"That's disgusting..." Yoongi muttered under his breath. "What are these things like? I mean, are they just crazy unpredictable, or... can you sort of figure out what they're gonna do...?"

"Well, they adhere to _some_ patterns..." the stranger nodded, "like any animal or human."

"How? Like, they've got _schedules_?"

"They only hunt at night," he said, which did nothing to help Yoongi feel any better about the situation, considering how dark it was outside in that moment.

"Oh... why?"

"I didn't ask."

"Well... any pro Wendigo tips? Like, if I rub garlic all over me, they won't be able to smell me or somethin'?"

"They'll still smell you," the man assured him.

"Anything _like_ that?" Yoongi rolled his eyes.

"They can't see you if you're standing still. It's like toads; Their sight is based on changes of movement in their field of vision."

"So if I don't move, I'm basically invisible?"

"Yeah. I wouldn't recommend testing it out, though... unless you have no other option."

"If these things... _Wendigos_... are, o-or were, human... do they still have some aspect of humanity in them?"

"They retain certain things."

"I mean, is it really _right_ to kill them? M-Maybe they can be cured or--"

"They surrender human rights the moment they _eat one another_ ," the stranger scoffed bitterly at that, once they finally reached the shed. "There's no cure. There's no redemption. When you're staring one in the face, it's them or you. You feel free to take the high road, but you won't be on it for long."

"Oh, no..." Yoongi's heart sank, when he realized Jin was no longer tied to the pillar inside. "He's gone... we're too late!"

"Shh! _Quiet_ ," the elder whispered, at the sudden shrieks that sounded from somewhere nearby. "We gotta go. _Right now_."

"We gotta find Jin--he could still be out there--"

"First, the Wendigo will render you immobile..." the man droned on, completely disregarding Yoongi's words, "and then, he'll strip the skin off your entire body, piece by piece... but he'll keep you alive and aware, as he feasts on your organs, one at a time..."

"So the lodge, then..." Yoongi gulped.

"Yes. Let's go now. It might still be near," the stranger warned him, before he began to lead the way back into the snowfall outside. 

"Wait. Don't move," he paused just a few yards out, but Yoongi stepped on a twig right as he said it, resulting in the eardrum-piercing shriek that sounded off behind them.

"RUN!" the stranger commanded, but as they made a break for it back toward the lodge, a pale grey creature suddenly blocked their path--similar to the one that chased Emily out of the mines-- _a_ _Wendigo_.

"HOLY SHIT!! WHAT THE FUCK?!" Yoongi narrowly avoided being burned alive within the stream of fire that emitted from the man's flamethrower, as he came to an abrupt halt in the snow.

"BACK!! BACK!!"

"GODDAMN!!"

"We're right out in the open!! We gotta get out of h--"

"OH, MY GOD!!! OH, MY _GOD_!!!" Yoongi screamed when the creature quickly dashed between them and, in the next instant, the stranger's head was falling from his shoulders, as the Wendigo had easily decapitated him with its claws.

It turned to face him next, but just as it lunged at him, **Yoongi raised the barrel of the shotgun and** blew it back a few feet when **he pulled the trigger**.

🦋

With that, he turned to sprint down the trail, being sure to frequently check over his shoulder for danger.

About halfway along the trail, the Wendigo caught up to him and attempted to lunge at him from a tree branch, before **Yoongi blasted it back a few feet with another clean shot**.

🦋

"YEAH!! SUCK IT!!" he shouted triumphantly, while he continued running toward the faint glow of the lodge's lights, that could just _barely_ be seen through the trees in front of him.

"SHIT!!" he jumped, when he reached the front lawn of the lodge, and another snaggletoothed creature crossed his path, before he reflexively shot it back.

"OH, _FUCK OFF_!!" Yoongi huffed, when it came crawling back for more, only to be blown back by another gunshot.

"HOBI!!" he shouted desperately, as he bolted up the front porch steps. "HOBI!!" he patted his hands against the glass of the door, once he finally reached it.

"Yoongi!" the younger man was rushing to open the door for him a short moment later. "Oh, my God! What happened?!"

"We gotta go!! That thing was like, _right_ _behind me_!!" Yoongi panted and, as if on cue, he slammed the door shut just as the Wendigo scaled the steps leading up to it, causing Hoseok to scream. 

"Go!! Go, go, go!!" Yoongi chanted.

Then, he reached for Hoseok's hand, and the pair made a break for the basement with the others.

**\---**

"Oh, my God! Thank God!" Emily breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her friends joining her and Jimin in the safety of the lower levels of the lodge. 

"What took you so long??" Jimin shook his head.

"It's not so good up there right now..." Yoongi answered vaguely.

"Understatement of the night," Jeongguk muttered.

"Yoongi, where's the flamethrower guy??" Jimin asked him then.

"Uh, he, um..." Yoongi struggled to find the words to describe what happened.

"He didn't make it?" Hoseok guessed.

"Oh, no..." Emily began to pace once more.

"What happened?" Jimin asked him a little more calmly.

"The _thing_... it... it _tore him apart_..." Yoongi said, "right in front of me..."

"Oh, _God_..." Jimin was shuddering at just the mere _thought_ of it, but he could only imagine what it must've been like for Yoongi to witness something so traumatic firsthand.

"Alright," Jeongguk spoke up, when he suddenly began to zip around the room. "These all the doors?"

"Yeah," Jimin nodded.

"Are you sure?"

"What are you looking for?"

"Another way out."

"Gukkie, I _really_ don't think that's a good idea..." Jimin protested seriously. "We should stay put, right here, until dawn. At least we're safe down here--"

"Oh, yeah? All wrapped up like a little present with a bow on top for that thing to tear us apart on Christmas morning??" Jeongguk replied satirically.

"People will come for us in the morning..."

"You don't sound so sure."

"That's what's gonna happen! Right, Em?"

"Yeah..." she nodded affirmatively. "I mean... right?"

"Well, _you_ can wait around for that," Jeongguk shrugged, before he simply decided, "I'm leaving."

"Jeongguk, there's no key for the cable car," Emily shook her head at him.

"Jin," he snapped his fingers in realization. "He's gotta have it."

" _Jin_??" Jimin's brows furrowed incredulously.

"One of his stupid little tricks," Jeongguk nodded.

" _Great_..." Jimin sighed. "Great!"

"If that fuckin' thing got a hold of Jin... we're shit outta luck."

"I don't know, Jeongguk," Emily said, "it's possible..."

"What's possible?" Jimin asked her.

"It may have taken him down into the mines."

"What?"

"I saw some horrible stuff down there. I think it's where that thing lives and..." she paused for a moment, when she remembered they brought the stranger's bag downstairs with them.

"Em? What?" Jimin felt concerned by her sudden bout of silence.

"Fuck it," Jeongguk shook his head then. "I'm gonna get that key, _right_ from that thing's goddamned _bedroom_ if I have to, and then I'm gonna get us all the hell out of here."

"Em, what is all that?" Jimin asked, causing Jeongguk to sigh quietly, as he realized none of them were listening.

"It's that old guy's bag..." Emily answered, as she began to dump out his belongings.

"Is that a map?" Jeongguk asked, from just over her injured shoulder, when he joined them near the table at the far side of the room.

"That guy was prepared for _anything_ ," Jimin hummed in amazement, when they took a step back and realized just how much equipment the man had on him.

"Not quite..."

"What is this place?" Emily pointed to the sanatorium on the map.

"I was there. It was horrible," Jeongguk answered honestly.

"You were?" Jimin frowned at that.

"There was a cave-in... in the 50s, I guess. These miners got trapped down there."

"Oh, my God..."

"Some of 'em survived, but like... _fifteen_ of 'em didn't make it. There was this reporter, though... and I think he figured out there had been some kind of cover-up going on," Jeongguk continued to explain his findings. "I found these plans, too--they knew the mine was a death trap, but they let the miners keep working anyway..."

"Jeongguk, I'd like to maybe focus on how we're gonna _get the fuck out of here_ , _please_??" Emily glared at him.

"I'm just saying... it's _weird_ how much crazy shit's gone on up here."

"What's _weird_ , is that there's a _tunnel leading from the lodge to the sanatorium_ ," she said, as she traced her fingertip along the pathway on the map. "See?"

"That's how I got back here," Jeongguk nodded comprehensively.

"Em...? What is _that_...?" Hoseok suddenly backed away from her.

"What?" she asked.

" _What. Is. That_??" he pointed to her bloody shoulder.

"Hobi--"

"Oh, my God... oh, no, no, no..."

"It's nothing! It just--it bit me and--"

"It _bit you_?! What _bit you_?!"

"The... the Wendigo..." Emily admitted sheepishly.

"The _what_??" Jeongguk's brows raised at that.

"It's nothing! Really! It's not a big deal!"

"Are you okay?" Jimin asked her then, instead of joining the rest of their friends in panicking.

" _Shit_..." Jeongguk cursed.

"It doesn't even hurt anymore. _Really_ , it's not that bad..." Emily swore.

"Em..." he shook his head again, "if that thing _bit_ _you_ \--"

"I-I know what you're thinking, and I'm _fine_!"

" _Are you_??"

" _Yes_!!"

"Emily... at least let us check it out," Jimin requested.

"Emily, if the Wendigo bit you, you could turn into one of those things," Jeongguk said sternly.

"Oh, that's ridiculous," Jimin dismissed him.

"He said it was from _eating each other_ , remember?! He _said that_!!" Hoseok reminded them.

"Wait. Is that how it worked...?" Emily asked.

"Yes! It happens if it bit you! You're gonna turn into one, and then you're gonna turn on us--" his eyes widened in realization. "Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my _GOD_!!"

"You can't be down here with us..." Jeongguk told her then.

" _What_??" Emily gaped at him.

" _Jeongguk_!" Jimin fixed him with a similar look of unpleasant surprise.

"You have to go."

"Are you _kidding me_?!" Emily took a step closer to him, causing him to take a step back.

"You're putting us all in danger."

"Like _hell_ I am!!"

" _Emily_!! _You_ _can't stay here_!!"

"Guk, just cool your head, _okay_?!" Jimin stepped in. "We don't know if it works like that! Maybe it's just a bite!"

"I... I've seen what these fuckers can do..." Yoongi broke his brooding silence, from where he'd been leaning against the wall, watching the scene unfold before him. "I don't wanna see it again..."

" _What is this_??" Emily shook her head at him, before she looked to Hoseok, then back to Jeongguk. "Guys, _what are you doing_??"

"Door's right here..." Jeongguk said, as he side-stepped out of the way of it. "I'm letting you do this voluntarily."

"No, you're just making yourself feel better about _sending me to my death_ , since you know there's a Wendigo out there ready to _rip me to pieces_ , just like it did with--"

" _OKAY_!! OH, MY _GOD_!! WILL YOU JUST _GO_?!" Hoseok shouted then, before Emily could get a chance to tear into Jeongguk about what happened to Taehyung. " _GO_!! _GET_ _OUT OF HERE_!!"

Then, when Emily stepped toward Hoseok, as if she was ready to fight, Jeongguk pulled his gun on her.

"Whoa! Whoa! Guk!" Jimin immediately moved to stand in front of her, with his hands held out before him. "Calm down!"

"You're... you're gonna _shoot me_...?" Emily asked Jeongguk, over Jimin's shoulder, with a look of betrayal about her features. "Gukkie... _me_??"

"This is the _safe room_ , Em! It's not safe as long as you're in it!"

As his voice broke and his hands trembled, he held the revolver out in front of him, but in the end, **he just couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger**.

" _Fuck_!" Jeongguk lowered his arms and, with tears in his eyes, he admitted, "I can't fucking do this..."

🦋

"Oh, my God..." Emily breathed.

"You did the right thing," Jimin told him.

"I _hope_ you did," Hoseok muttered.

"Yeah, maybe. For now," Jeongguk sighed while he hung his head, as he was seemingly unable to meet anyones gaze in that moment. "Keep an eye on her. If you see anything weird, you guys know what to do."

"Yeah..."

"No one leaves, okay? It's not safe out there..." Jeongguk said and, before he turned to leave the room, he promised them, "I'll be back soon."

**\---**

"I actually thought that he was gonna help us..." Emily said, once Jeongguk was gone, and an awkward silence fell upon the rest of them.

"Who, the flamethrower dude?" Jimin asked, as Hoseok curiously reached for the guy's notebook, that was still resting on the table.

"Now we don't have a chance..." she said.

"No. It just means we've got to be tough. We've gotta do this on our own."

"I don't know if I can..." Emily admitted, while **Hoseok got to flipping through the handwritten pages**.

🦋

**_Only a few men have dared to hunt the Wendigo. I am the only man who has ever kept them under control. Heed these words, or it shall be your death, and your death will not be the last. The Wendigo must be contained!_ **

**_The Wendigo grows out of CANNIBALISM! When a human is desperate and craves food, trapped on the mountain in the fierce winter storms. When he has eaten nothing for many days, the Wendigo spirit will begin to possess him. Even the strongest man is weak to it. He will kill without remorse--often the companions who have travelled with him. He will eat the flesh raw from the corpses._ **

**_I have seen this happen, many years ago--a craving for flesh that cannot be sated--and then the change begins. The eyes turn first and become milky and white. Then the teeth become longer, like fangs. The creature grows and the skin is pulled taut across the bones._ **

**_This journal is an account of the Wendigo._ **

**_This creature is real and dangerous!!_ **

**_If you are reading this, you will have questions, but I do not have all the answers. This is all evidence and stories of my own experience._ **

**_There was a tribe that lived in these mountains; The Cree. Their shamans tell stories of a tall creature, "born in ice." The tribe respected the mountain and all the animals which lived on it. The mountain became sacred to the Cree. Every animal became sacred also. The Cree believed it was bad luck to harm an animal on the mountain and would hunt elsewhere._ **

**_In 1893, the miners arrived. They found tin, and later, traces of radium. They mined deep into the sacred mountain. The Cree say that the mountain cried out and the spirit was released._ **

**_The Wendigo's eyes change. They become both sharper and more dim. The Wendigo sees movement. It is a hunter, like a hawk, but it cannot see stillness. If you are to keep totally still, then the Wendigo will not be able to see you._ **

**_The skin and flesh of the Wendigo are hard, like armor. They seem to feel no pain. They cannot be cut or stabbed. Bullets will not pierce their skin, though a shotgun will keep them at bay._ **

**_Because the Wendigo is mutated from a human, it knows how to hunt us. It can perfectly mimic its prey. You must remain sharp and disciplined._ **

**_I have killed 6 Wendigos. Knives or bullets will not harm them. Use a flamethrower. It is the best weapon. Fire envelops them, burns away their skin, and makes them weak._ **

**_But try not to kill them._ **

**_Killing a Wendigo should be the last resort. Death releases the Wendigo spirit into the air._ **

**_I have contained them. I used traps to catch them and fire to drive them into cages. The traps were baited with human limbs from those who had no further use for them._ **

**_Cree legend says that the Wendigo grows from the bite of another Wendigo, but the bite is harmless. I have been bitten, but I did not change. The only way, is to eat the flesh of another. There is no other way._ **

So rather than **conceal his findings** , **Hoseok reassured Emily** that she would be okay.

"Guys... this says that the bites aren't infectious. They don't do anything..."

🦋

"Let me see that," Jimin requested the book from him.

"I'm sorry, _what did you just say_??" Emily asked, as Jimin began to read for himself.

"Em, it says you'll be okay..." Hoseok explained.

"You're gonna be fine," Jimin nodded affirmatively, when she looked to him for confirmation.

" _Fine_?!" Emily's brows furrowed at that. "Jeongguk almost _shot me_!! Is that _fine_?!"

"He didn't shoot you--"

"And _this dick_ almost _let him_!" she stepped toward Hoseok again, who now wore a guilty expression.

"Hey, that's not fair. He was scared."

" _I'm_ the one who's _scared_!"

"I-I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Emily," Hoseok apologized sincerely. "I-I didn't know what was going to happen... _none_ _of us_ knew--"

"There's no excuse! There is _no_ _excuse_ for this!!"

"Please, Emily! _Please_ , just try to understand--"

"Understand the palm of my hand, _bitch_!!" Emily spat, before she slapped him across the face.

"I'm sorry..." Hoseok choked out in return and, as his hand reached to cover his stinging cheek, he turned to join Yoongi near the wall. "I'm so so so sorry..." he sniffled.

" _Shit_..." Jimin cursed, once he finished reading the pages Hoseok pointed out to him. "Shit, shit, shit--we need to get to Guk! Like, _right now_!"

**\---**

_Oh, Seokjin..._

_You should've listened to me._

_Because of your choices, people have died._

_I don't know which is worse; Actively triggering events that lead to someone's death, or passively allowing a tragedy to occur because you couldn't lift a goddamned finger to help someone else!_

_Remember last year?_

_Huh?!_

_How you left your poor sisters to die?!_

_You did nothing to help them!_

_Paralyzed by your own self-centered fear, while a real threat was closing in._

_But, no! It's all about you, Jin! It's always all about you!_

_Your little game has gone terribly wrong, and your friends, like your sisters, have deserted you!_

_You're all alone._

_Can you feel how cold your loneliness has become?_

_Why did you hurt them?_

_Seokjin, why did you hurt them?!_

**They hurt me.**

🦋

_They didn't hurt you, Seokjin! Not intentionally! They made a stupid mistake and a terrible tragedy befell your sisters!_

_They did not intend for that to happen. It just did, and they were sorry, at least until you subjected them to your night of horrific torture!_

**I'm so sorry...**

🦋

_Let us hope that it is not too late for atonement, and that your friends--if they still are your friends--can save you from this terrible isolation._

**-Dr. Hill**


	11. 🦋NINE - DESPAIR🥀

❤️ **AUTHOR'S NOTE** ❤️

Thank you for patiently waiting for this update.

I've mostly been on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/kenxthexdoll) as of late, keeping up with the Black Lives Matter protests, signing petitions, and spreading awareness to help support the movement. [Here is the link for the BLM carrd, which is constantly being updated with ways to contribute.](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/)

I'm not about to argue with anyone about this topic, and hateful comments will simply be deleted, so don't bother.

\- Ken 💜

* * *

* * *

**[DESPAIR - 2 HOURS UNTIL DAWN]**

Jeongguk sighed to himself as he wandered through the decrepit halls of the sanatorium.

He never thought he would ever have to enter the building in the first place, let alone _twice in one night_. 

But he absolutely _refused_ to simply lie in wait beneath the lodge for the rangers that were supposedly coming to their rescue, and if there was _anything_ he could do to increase the chances of saving the rest of his friends, then by all means, Jeongguk was determined to get it done.

Therefore--seeing as he felt he had the least to lose at this point as well--Jeongguk carried on in search of Jin, as it was one of the only real chances they had at making it off this godforsaken mountain alive.

"Holy shit..." he breathed when he first re-entered the chapel, as it appeared to be in even worse condition than it had been just a few hours ago, and Jeongguk wasn't entirely sure why or how, but he wasn't too keen on sticking around to find out either.

 _What happened to the wolves?_ he thought to himself then, because he hadn't heard a single bark or howl since he left the place, but nevertheless, he ascended the staircase in the corner and found a gap in the cement floor, leading down into a locked supply closet.

Jeongguk smirked at the sight of a sawn-off shotgun, which rested idly upon a workbench inside, conveniently placed next to an ammunition container filled with shotgun shells.

With that, he hopped down into the compact room, landing on his feet with ease, before he moved to collect the gun as well as a handful of shells, which he slipped into his jacket pocket.

Then, as if on cue, Jeongguk could hear the bark of a wolf in the distance, which brought the ghost of a smile to his face despite the circumstances.

So, once he shot the lock off the door handle, Jeongguk wandered toward the opposite side of the chapel, where he was met with the sight of the same grey wolf that had allowed him to pet his fur.

"Hey, big guy," Jeongguk's smile widened, as the wolf panted excitedly on his way over to him. "Happy to see me again, huh?" he knelt down to pet the large canine beneath his jaw, making his tail wag like a happy puppy. 

"Alright. Good boy," Jeongguk cooed as he stood upright. "Okay, here's the plan. I happened to see a map for this place, so we're not flying blind. There should be a way through the psychiatric ward that'll take us right outside the mine. Think we can handle that?"

The wolf huffed with an adorable shake of his head, leading Jeongguk to reply, "couldn't have said it better myself," as he began to lead the way through a tunnel of chainlink fences that connected the main building to the psychiatric wing from the outside.

He braced the cold of the wind and the snow for all of about thirty seconds, before he was nearly jumping out of his skin with the way the wolf barked upon entering the ward.

"Jesus Christ..." Jeongguk breathed as his heart raced between his lungs. "Calm down, boy," he ran his fingertips along the fur of the wolf's back, so the animal began to lead him through the hallway with a low growl.

Among his findings in this branch was an examination report that read;

** REPORTING PHYSICIAN:  **   
**DR. W. B. CATHCART**

**INITIAL REPORT:  
** **The patients were first admitted to Blackwood's medical facility 5 days ago. During this time we have run a number of tests, both physiological and psychological.**

**The results have been extraordinary; in contravention of common medical expectations.**

**SYMPTOMS OBSERVED:  
** **Pallor. Skin dyspigmentation.** **Severe vitamin D deficiency.**

 **Social dysfunction.** **Longer than average re-adaptation period post-traumatic event. Interpersonal behavior; 'erratic.'**

 **Violence towards orderlies.** **3 attempted assaults.** **1 attempted scratching.**

**SYMPTOMS EXPECTED BUT NOT OBSERVED:  
** **Malnutrition/scurvy.** **Avg. Quetelet Index--** **was only within -3% of normal expected values.** **(They should be** DEAD **!!)**

 **Frostbite.** **Patient's stimulus response within acceptable bounds (130-410ms).**

 **Frailty/weakness.** **Distention of tibia, fibula and humerus (avg. +1").** **Observed unusual growth in strength.** **One patient lifted 725 lb weights.**

 ** SUGGESTED ACTION:  
** **Place under strict observation. Restraint strongly recommended. **

**Change from 1 orderly to 3 orderlies.**

** 24h/day observation. **

"Huh," Jeongguk hummed once he was finished reading, but he dropped the paper altogether when he turned to find the grey wolf at the end of the corridor.

The wolf whimpered helplessly at the sight of another, which had apparently been slaughtered, as its lifeless body hung from the door of a holding cell with its guts hanging down onto the floor.

"What the fuck have I gotten myself into...?" Jeongguk gaped, but he covered his mouth and nose with the front of his shirt in an attempt to avoid the smell of it, before he reached down to pet the grey wolf's head to console him.

The wolf whined sadly, but carried on walking at Jeongguk's side as he continued down the hallway.

In a room labeled **DOCTOR'S OFFICE** , Jeongguk found another examination report which showcased the subsequent transformation of a person who appeared to have been affected by the curse of the Wendigo, _all the way back in 1952_.

**Blackwood Sanatorium  
Medical Examination**

**Patient No. 9  
** **Progression of Skeletal Hyperostosis**

** CONFIDENTIAL **

**Jan. 9th, 1952**

**Day 4:**

**Epidermal dyspigmentation; expected after time underground  
** **Severe curvature of thoracic region; post traumatic kyphosis?  
** **Corneal dystrophy and clouding.**

**Acuity:  
20/160**

**Jan. 14th, 1952**

**Day 9:**

**Chronic kyphosis  
** **Scarring alopecia  
** **Extreme nasal septum perforation  
** **Ectodermal dysplasia? (pointing of teeth)**

**Jan. 17th, 1952**

**Day 12:**

**Telogen effluvium, not alopecia?  
** **Maxillary canine length 1"  
** **Consistent w/ corneal edema but acuity now 20/22  
** **Epidermal toughening; stratum corneum**

Jeongguk shook his head at just how insane this night continued to be. 

"This is unbelievable..."

He left the dossier aside to join the grey wolf in the **B WING** , but his perplexity quickly faded to worry, as he heard a disembodied shriek echoing down the hallway behind him.

The wolf led him all the way down into the heart of the building, before he suddenly paused in his tracks, and the rattling of a metal can caused Jeongguk to pause as well. When he quickly turned and aimed his gun to find that it was just a rodent, however, he whisper-yelled, "fuckin' rat!"

Jeongguk lowered the gun then, but upon turning back around, he was met with the petrifying sight of a Wendigo, which stared him straight in the eye with its own milky grey ones before it shrieked in his face like a banshee.

It lunged at him as well, but with a single blast of his shotgun, the Wendigo's body violently whipped backward, allowing Jeongguk to make a run for it. 

"How's that feel, you fuck?!"

As he did so, the grey wolf followed closely behind, while the Wendigo simply scaled the wall and began to _crawl after him on the ceiling_.

So, given the chance to **run down the open corridor or make a break for the doorway** to the left, **Jeongguk slipped into the room** to his left, **and barricaded the door** with a large metal filing cabinet as soon as he possibly could.

🦋

When the Wendigo came rearing its ugly head in the small window at the top of the door, Jeongguk pulled the machete from the hammer loop of his utility jeans and bashed the creature in the face with the blade.

However, when no sort of damage was done, Jeongguk growled frustratedly, before he ran through the closest door and locked that behind himself as well.

The wolf led the way through the next room, before he abruptly stopped in his tracks, leading Jeongguk to do the same.

Another Wendigo sat perched upon a table at the far side of the room.

"Fuck..." Jeongguk cursed under his breath, as it craned its head back and forth, but it hopped down from the table and slowly but surely made its way over to the opposite end of the room.

Each time it looked away, Jeongguk and the wolf moved a little bit further.

"Don't... you... _fucking_... look at me... holy shit..." Jeongguk whispered to himself out of pure adrenalized fear, until the Wendigo was finally gone, and the pair were safely able to make their way into the next corridor of holding cells.

As the wolf began to growl at his side, Jeongguk was merely reassured that they most definitely were _not_ in the clear yet, so he kept his eyes peeled, his ears attentive, and his hands ready to go with the shotgun in their grip.

"Where are you...?" Jeongguk quietly thought aloud, but they otherwise moved along the length of the hall together in a stealthy silence.

That was until a Wendigo gave its position away, with the shriek it gave among its place in a cell to Jeongguk's right, leading him to jump out of the way before he could be grabbed.

As it clung to the bars of the cell door, Jeongguk promptly aimed his gun and fired, sending the Wendigo flying back against the wall at the far side of the cell.

"When is this shit gonna stop??" he shook his head, as it twitched upon the floor for a moment, before it came crawling back toward the door. 

" _Jesus_ \--" Jeongguk flinched at the sight of just how _fast_ it was, before the wolf began to lead him away from the creature. "This is a fuckin' nightmare... okay..." 

He swallowed thickly as he carried on, only to nearly be snatched up by the throat, by another sickly grey hand that came at him from a cell on his left.

"Hey!" Jeongguk backed away from it and, when he realized he was backing straight into the door of another cell, he quickly righted himself in order to remain in the center of the corridor, as another Wendigo charged at him from the opposite side.

"One at a time, boys..." Jeongguk's gaze bounced back and forth from right to left, as he backed his way down the hallway. "There's enough of me for all of you!"

With another bark from the wolf, however, Jeongguk quickly turned back and managed to avoid being grabbed by his ankle from the low-swinging arm of yet _another_ Wendigo.

When he reached the end of the hall of cells, Jeongguk's eyes scanned the darkness of the open cell directly in front of him, but--as he became distracted by a shriek to his right--Jeongguk narrowly avoided a bite to his throat when a Wendigo came lunging at him from said darkness.

He backed up so quick he fell on his ass, just as the Wendigo's body was harshly tugged backward by the chained collar around its neck; At which point, Jeongguk took the opportunity to blast the creature back into its cell, buying him just enough time to slip around the bend and rejoin the wolf in the psychiatric ward.

Though Jeongguk couldn't catch a break, it seemed, as another Wendigo came crawling along the ceiling and chased the pair all the way over to the chapel.

 **Jeongguk quickly barricaded the door** behind them when they reached it, before he rushed over to the cellar and tried to make an escape, through the same exact doors in which he entered the sanatorium the first time around.

**🦋**

In order to do so, Jeongguk had to jump through another gap in the floor and, once he did, he glanced up at the wolf.

"Hey, buddy!" he smiled up at him with open arms, "come on down." 

The wolf chose to stay, however, and, **thanks to the way Jeongguk had barricaded the door behind them, the Wendigo was unable to harm the wolf**.

🦋

"Okay, bud," he nodded understandingly. "Catch you on the flip side, huh?"

With that, Jeongguk made a break for the exit, but not without capturing the attention of two more Wendigos, who snarled at him as he began to slam his shoulder into the door, which must've been locked up by the flamethrower guy before he made his journey up to the lodge.

Nevertheless, when Jeongguk turned to face them, **he aimed for the drums of oil between the creatures and blew them up** with a single pull of the trigger.

🦋

He crouched down in front of the door and shielded his head with his arms, as shrapnel and debris went flying in every direction, before **he finally managed to force the door open and escape**.

🦋

**\---**

"Oh, shit..." Jimin sighed when he reached a set of locked double doors in the basement. "Jeongguk must've locked it behind him... there's gotta be another way in..."

"Hey, what about this?" Hoseok gestured vaguely toward the manhole in the ground a few yards back. "I mean, should we try it?"

"Well... it's not like we've got a whole lot of choices here..." Jimin sighed, before the two of them got to work, lifting the cover off and setting it aside to reveal a set of ladder handles leading down into a dark abyss.

"Okay, this is maybe the last place I'd wanna be right now..." Hoseok swallowed thickly, as Yoongi got to shining his flashlight down into the hole.

"So, who's going first?" Jimin chirped, as he looked from Hoseok, to Emily, to Yoongi.

"After you," Emily scoffed at that.

So Jimin sighed, but he quickly got to lowering himself down onto the ladder.

"It's not so bad..." he thought aloud, mostly as a way to convince himself. Then, the thought of Jeongguk being all alone out there--potentially injured or worse--encouraged him to continue his descent. "You think this is the tunnel to the sanatorium?"

"Of course it is," Hoseok's brows furrowed at that. "Where else would it go?"

Emily followed along behind Jimin, then Yoongi, and finally **Hoseok** , who **made sure to slide the manhole cover back onto the entrance** , just to be on the safe side.

🦋

As he did so, the rest of them carried on walking, trusting that he would catch up soon enough. But as he moved to do so, he heard something quite familiar.

" _JEONGGUK_!!" a disembodied shout came echoing through the depths of the underground, and Hoseok could've swore that it sounded just like _Taehyung_.

But that couldn't be the case.

Taehyung was dead... right? Jeongguk said it himself.

" _HEY_!! _HELP ME, PLEASE_!!" the voice sounded off once more, causing an icy sense of uncertainty to creep its way up Hoseok's spine.

"Taehyung?!" Hoseok called out despite his skepticism. "Is that you?! Hello?!"

Rather than choosing to **investigate the voice** , however, Hoseok figured he was probably just hearing things anddecided to **rejoin the group instead.**

**🦋**

"Oh, my God. I'm so glad to see you," he exhaled a sigh of relief once he finally caught up to them.

"Glad you're safe," Jimin nodded apologetically, as he hadn't realized they left him behind.

"But look at this," Emily gestured to the wooden scaffolding leading out of the sewer. "The ladder's toast. We're never gonna make it up there!"

Jimin pursed his lips in thought as he eyed the wall of dirt and rock that stood between them and Jeongguk.

"I think I can," he said then. "I think I can do it. It's like... it's like a rock wall. I'm gonna keep going. You guys should head back to the lodge. I'm gonna go get Jeongguk."

**\---**

"DAMN IT!! STAY OUT THERE!!"

Jimin could hear Jeongguk shouting, before he finally reached the top of the "rock wall" to find the younger man pressing all of his weight against a door that led outside.

One of the Wendigos from the sanatorium had followed him away from the building he set on fire, leading him to run for his life until he came barging through said door.

He was no match for its strength though, and Jeongguk was knocked onto his back with the weight of the metal door, before the Wendigo quickly moved to attack him.

"SHIT!!" Jeongguk panicked, just as Jimin's eyes widened with fear.

The fact that _the creature was still on fire_ did nothing to help that fear subside, but he still rushed to defend his friend, with a shovel that had been leaning against the wall beside the door.

"HEY!!" **Jimin cracked the Wendigo beneath the jaw** with an underhanded swing of the tool, **before he knocked its head clean off its shoulders** with another powerful swing.

🦋

"Whoa..." Jeongguk doubled over to catch his breath as soon as he stood back up, "you alright?"

"Define _alright_ ," Jimin shook his head in astonishment.

" _Alive_ , for a start," Jeongguk chuckled softly.

"Yeah. Yeah, alive's good," Jimin nodded with an anxious little laugh, as if he was still trying to process what had just happened.

"The hell are you doing here, anyway?" Jeongguk asked him then.

"I was gonna warn you about the Wendigos," he shrugged defeatedly, as his mission to do so had proven to be for naught.

"Think I got it," Jeongguk assured him. "Now let's find a way down to where these fuckers live."


	12. 🦋TEN - REPENTANCE⌛️

_I wonder how much these "sessions" are of any help to you now._

_You just won't listen to me and things seem pretty... fucked up!_

_So I'm going to leave you now, Jin._

_It's time you learned there is more to be afraid of than can be dreamt of by the unhinged imagination of a self-indulgent, spoiled little brat!_

_You had so many people who cared about you, who were willing to help, but at every turn, you chose to push them away and now you're all alone._

_Though by the sounds of things, you won't be alone for long._

_Deep breaths, Jin... deep breaths._

**-Dr. Hill**

**\---**

**[REPENTANCE - 1 HOUR UNTIL DAWN]**

"I was _not_ prepared for how _ugly_ that thing would be up close..." Jimin shuddered, as he followed along behind Jeongguk through the confusion of the mines.

"Yeah..." Jeongguk pursed his lips, before he sighed, "so I noticed something kinda weird about it..."

"What?"

"The Wendigo... it had a scar."

"So...?"

"I've seen it before," Jeongguk answered.

"What are you talking about?"

"I saw these old pictures of some guy with that same scar... and he was _transforming into a Wendigo_."

"You're kidding..." Jimin hoped it wasn't so, but Jeongguk shook his head.

"It was one of the miners who'd been trapped back in the 50s... in that cave-in. Which means that thing is _80 years old_... _at least_."

"Pretty spunky for an old timer," Jimin muttered sarcastically, as he began to lead the way instead.

"They cleaned the place out... killed a lot of people."

" _They_? You mean there are _more of them_??"

"Oh, yeah," Jeongguk nodded affirmatively.

"How many??"

"Too many."

"Well, I think we're close..." Jimin swallowed thickly, "to the lair."

"How can you tell?"

"I dunno, I just... feel _really terrible_ all of a sudden."

"Ditto..."

"I really don't wanna go in there," Jimin shook his head from where they now stood before the dark maw of another tunnel entrance.

"There's no other way through," Jeongguk reluctantly began to lead the way once more.

However, as they approached a deep, rectangular depression in the dirt they walked upon, Jimin's fear quickly turned to sorrow.

"Guk... is that what I think it is?" he asked.

"Shit... looks like a _grave_ ," Jeongguk concluded, as he pointed out several bones that could be seen protruding from the dirt within the rectangle.

When Jimin spotted something shiny among the dirt, he knelt down to get a closer look, only to discover that _it was Beth's watch_.

"Oh, God... Jeongguk!" Jimin's eyes welled with tears, as he picked up the broken timepiece and held it out for Jeongguk to see. "This is _Beth's_! This is her watch!"

" _What_??" Jeongguk's brows furrowed at that. "Let me see," he reached for the watch, so Jimin handed it over.

Then, **Jeongguk turned it around to discover the name Beth K. engraved upon the back of the face**.

🦋

"So this is where she was buried..." Jeongguk concluded then, and a guilty feeling washed over him, as he cast a mournful glance at the makeshift grave.

"But... who dug her up?" Jimin asked then, causing Jeongguk to close his eyes in an attempt to stifle the tears that threatened to spill from his waterline. 

"Let's just keep moving..." Jeongguk said after a moment of silence.

So Jimin led him deeper into the tunnel, until they came across a wide body of mining water, of which they would clearly have to swim through if they wanted to make it to the other side.

"Fine..." Jimin huffed, as he realized there was no other way to go, unless they turned back.

Jeongguk quietly hissed when he carefully lowered himself into the ice-cold, waist-deep water, before he turned back to tell Jimin, "come on. It's okay."

"You sure...?"

"I'm not dead yet," Jeongguk shrugged.

"Famous last words..." Jimin muttered under his breath, but he hissed as he got to lowering himself into the water as well. "It's fucking freezing... I can't feel my fingers."

Nevertheless, Jeongguk led him through the water, until they realized it grew even deeper the further they went.

"Wait a minute," Jimin shook his head in confusion once the water reached their ribs. "I thought you'd reached the deepest part...?"

"I didn't say _that_ , I said it was okay--meaning, like... there weren't any _sharks_ or anything in here," Jeongguk jokingly replied.

" _Sharks_! Great. Thank you," Jimin sighed, as he now had yet _another_ terrifying thought to add to the collection of others that'd been tormenting him all night.

When they finally reached the other side of the water, Jeongguk's brows raised at the sight of--what appeared to be--a miner's notebook resting on the ground.

"Oh, shit... this looks like _Hannah's_ writing," Jeongguk pointed out, so **Jimin knelt down to read through the pages.**

**DAY 1**

**My little sister is dead. The fall killed her... I watched the color drain from her face.**

**My leg is broken.**

**I'm all alone, stuck here with Beth's body.**

**Someone will come soon.**

**\---**

**DAY 5**

**I've never been so HUNGRY. It feels like my stomach is twisting around inside.**

**I took Beth's sweater. Much warmer now.**

**She's still looking out for me.**

**\---**

**DAY 30**

**I'm sorry Beth. I have no choice. I'm DYING.**

**It's the only way I can survive any more. If someone finds this, I'm SORRY. I had to. I had no choice.**

**Forgive me Beth.**

**I'm sorry.**

**\---**

**DAY 33**

**My hands feel unclean**

**My nails fell out PUSHED OUT**

**I am aching but no more COLD**

**NO PAIN**

**I am getting stronger!!**

**🦋**

The final page--consisting of nothing but a repetition of the word **HUNGRY** among jagged lines of pencil lead--had Jimin abandoning the notebook altogether.

"Oh, God!" he breathed in realization, "it makes sense! I think--I think _Hannah_ dug up Beth! It was _Hannah_!"

"No..." Jeongguk immediately tried to dismiss the idea. "That's--That's ridiculous..."

"Jeongguk," Jimin shook his head at that, "it _has_ to be... it's the only thing that makes sense! Beth died in the fall--"

"So what?? What does that mean??"

"So Hannah must've buried her! She was down here!"

"I don't believe any of this!"

"She would've been _starving_!!" Jimin cried. "She would've been _desperate_!!"

"Fuck!" Jeongguk choked out.

"We need to find Jin! _Right now_!"

**\---**

"Oh, God... bodies..." Jimin gestured to a bit of wooden scaffolding they eventually came across, whereupon several corpses hung from the beams.

"Yeah... a lot of 'em," Jeongguk said, as his heart began to beat a bit faster between his lungs. "I think I'm gonna be sick..." he admitted.

However, as he turned away from the hanging bodies--in order to double over and potentially vomit--Jeongguk spotted a familiar head of black hair up in the distance.

"Wait, wait... is that _Jin_??" his brows furrowed in confusion, leading Jimin to stand at his side to get a closer look.

"Jin!" Jimin gasped in realization at the sight of the older man, before they both began to move toward him.

"I DON'T TAKE ORDERS FROM YOU!!" Seokjin sobbed so hard, he slurred his words. "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!! YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO ANYMORE!!"

"What's the matter with him??" Jimin sniffled quietly over Jeongguk's shoulder, as it scared him to see Jin like this.

"He's trippin' or something," Jeongguk explained, as Jin continued to sob and shout at seemingly nothing.

So he slapped his cheek just hard enough to snap him out of it. 

"Jin!"

"G-Guk?" Seokjin blinked out of pleasant surprise when he was suddenly met with the sight of his youngest friend.

"Jin!" Jeongguk smiled, as he was relieved to find that he was still alive, and that he seemed to have been snapped out of whatever sort of mental breakdown he'd been facing only moments ago. "Hey, man!"

"D-Don't hit me, p-please..." Jin spoke in an uncharacteristically timid voice.

"You were deep in it, man..." Jeongguk told him with a concerned expression. "Full mental jacket."

"We didn't think we'd get you back..." Jimin admitted quietly, before **he reluctantly began to explain** , "Jin... Hannah was down here for _weeks_... a _month_?? She dug Beth up--"

🦋

"Jimin--" Jeongguk shook his head at that, as if to say now wasn't exactly the best time.

"Jeongguk."

"Let's just get the fuck out of here," Jeongguk gestured back toward the way they came with his thumb.

"Okay," Jimin sighed, but he looked to Jin once more to ask, "Jin, do you have the key for the cable car?"

"Yeah... here," he nodded, seeming outwardly embarrassed by his own behavior, while **he fished the key out of his pocket and handed it over to Jimin**.

🦋

"Good," Jimin nodded as he pocketed the key.

**\---**

"See that up there?" Jimin pointed up toward the night sky, which could be seen through a gap just beyond another steep wall of dirt and rock. "That means there's a direct way out. Come on."

"There's no way Jin's making it up there," Jeongguk shook his head at that.

"Okay. If you help me up, I can go back and tell the others we're okay. You bring Jin back the way we came, and we'll all meet at the lodge."

"Okay. Yeah," Jeongguk agreed with the plan, but made sure to tell Jimin to, "be careful," when he crouched down and proceeded to boost Jimin up onto the rocks.

Then, once Jimin was out of earshot, Jeongguk turned on his heel and began to lead Seokjin back through the mines.

"Alright, let's go, you fucked up son of a bitch," Jeongguk nonchalantly waved him along.

"Y-You didn't... you didn't have to hit me so much, man..." Seokjin said, as he shuffled along behind Jeongguk.

"Yeah... I'm sorry about before, man," Jeongguk nodded in agreement, feeling remorseful, "I thought you killed Taehyung... I was wrong."

With that, they carried on together in ominous silence, which was promptly broken when Seokjin took note of the bodies that decorated the ceiling.

"No..." he fearfully gasped, before Jeongguk took his hand, in order to lead him through the area a bit faster.

When they reached the mining water, Jeongguk hopped right in, so Jin hesitantly followed suit, causing him to lag behind just a few feet as they trudged through the water.

His fearful expression returned, however, when Jeongguk was abruptly tugged beneath the surface of the murky water by an unseen force.

After a few moments, the bubbles stopped, Jeongguk still hadn't resurfaced, and Jin was understandably beginning to panic.

So he attempted to make a run for it--in what he could only assume to be the right direction--only to be confronted by the snarling scowl of a Wendigo, as it suddenly breached the water's surface.

"YOU'RE NOT REAL!!!" Jin screamed. "YOU'RE NOT!!!"

Then, as it grabbed an aggressive hold of his bicep, Jin took note of the tiny black outline of a butterfly tattooed on its shoulder, whereupon _**Jin immediately recognized the Wendigo to be his sister**_ , "HANNAH!!!"

🦋

"NO!!!" he cried, as she began to drag him through the water, back into the depths of the mines. "NOOO!!!"

After he somehow managed to fight his way out of the Wendigo's grip beneath the water, Jeongguk was forced to watch it drag his friend in absolute horror, from where he'd been hiding behind the cover of a massive boulder.

**\---**

Namjoon sighed to himself as he wandered the mines in search of Emily.

He could only imagine what happened to her after the fire tower collapsed, but wherever she was, he hoped she was safe.

Or at least alive.

One person he hadn't necessarily been expecting to run into as he made his way around, was _Taehyung_ , who weakly attempted to smack Namjoon in the back of the head with a shovel he found.

However, the older man turned around just in time to catch Taehyung's wrist in his hand.

"T- _Tae_?? Is that you??" Namjoon's eyes widened at the sight of his injured, disheveled, half-naked appearance. " _Jesus_... Taehyung what the hell happened to you?? How the fuck are you still _alive_??"

"Y-Yeah..." Taehyung breathed, as he sort of swayed from side to side, clearly struggling to remain standing upright.

He was in _pretty fucking bad shape_ , but rather than continue to **pester him for answers** , Namjoon decided to **inform Taehyung about what'd been going on**.

🦋

"Something's been going on tonight," Namjoon explained. "There's someone really fuckin' with us up here."

"N-No..." Taehyung's voice was hoarse, and he shook his head, as he tried his best to explain, "i-it's not some _one_... it's some _thing_ \--"

"Tae... you've had a pretty rough night. It's pretty confusing," Namjoon said, as he hadn't yet been made aware of what was _actually_ going on that night. "I didn't mean to scare you. Can you move?"

"Yeah..." Taehyung sniffled quietly.

"Come on..." 

Then, Namjoon reached for his hand and draped his arm over his shoulders, allowing Taehyung to lean all of his weight against him while he limped at his side.

They shuffled onward in silence until a disembodied shriek prompted them to jump.

"What the fuck?? T-Tae??" Namjoon looked down at him. "Which way??"

Taehyung was far too weak to **run** in that moment, so he opted to **hide with Namjoon** instead.

🦋

They stepped off to the side of the path they'd been following and hid amongst a bit of rickety scaffolding, at which point Namjoon curiously craned his head around to watch a grey, humanoid creature crawl up the wall and quickly make its way past them, much like a jumping spider.

Taehyung didn't know how much more of this he could possibly take and, if it wasn't for the fact that Namjoon had already been looking in his direction, he would've collapsed upon a pile of scrap material in front of them with the way he nearly fainted.

Namjoon managed to catch him before he could get too far, however, causing him to release a sigh of relief, as the creature wasn't around to see it. He also had no doubt in his mind that whatever noises would've emitted as a result of Taehyung keeling over just then would've cost them their lives.

"Does this hurt?" Namjoon raised his arms above his head, so Taehyung attempted to do the same, leading him to whimper miserably and lower them back down. 

He would've easily piggybacked Taehyung to safety if it didn't physically pain him so much just to simply _lift his arms_.

"Alright," Namjoon nodded understandingly. "Well, we gotta do this. We need to get out of here. Come on."

So the pair continued walking along the path and, with Taehyung lagging a few feet behind, Namjoon's heart began to pound with worry as another stoney grey creature inevitably came scrambling after them in the tunnel.

With that, given the chance to either **abandon Taehyung** **or** choose to **hide together** again, **Namjoon chose the latter** without hesitation.

🦋

He quickly slammed his shoulder against a makeshift wall of planks, breaking through the weakened wood, and allowing for both of them to slip through and hide in plain sight just around the corner.

Then, as they now stood upon a steep, snowy cliffside, Namjoon held Taehyung upright by his shoulders, just in case he ended up fainting again.

The Wendigo shrieked as it scanned the surrounding area for its prey, but found nothing, as Namjoon & Taehyung managed to remain fairly still until the creature eventually moved on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost to the end... 👀 one last chapter 💜💜💜


	13. 🦋EPILOGUE🦋

"HEY!!! HEY!!! COME ON, OPEN UP!!!" Jimin shouted when he finally reached the front door of the lodge.

"Jimin..." someone said from just over his shoulder, causing him to whip around and find Jeongguk standing there on the porch with him.

He looked to be in even worse shape than he had before, as his eye was now bruised black & blue, while his lip was split, and his entirety was covered in muck from the mining water.

"Shit! Guk!" Jimin sighed a small breath of relief. "Oh, God, you look _terrible_ \--"

"Gonna look worse if we stay out here," Jeongguk encouraged him to find a way to open the door. "Come on."

So Jimin quickly scanned the surrounding area and absentmindedly smiled at the sight of a rock in the snow, before he picked it up and bashed a hole in the glass of the door.

With that, Jimin was able to reach inside, unlock it, and let the two of them back into the lodge.

"Jeongguk... what happened to Jin?" Jimin asked flatly, as if to show that he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know the answer.

"It got him..." was all Jeongguk said, causing Jimin to exhale a deep, shaky breath.

" _God_..." Jimin quietly sniffled, "what an _awful_ way to go... what do you think we should do?"

"We should check the basement," Jeongguk replied just as quietly, "might be someone left down there..."

"How do you rate our chances of survival?" Jimin asked curiously, as they sauntered toward the door to the basement together.

"I'm trying not to think about it..." Jeongguk answered honestly, but before he could even reach for the handle, the door was abruptly flying open.

"GO!!! RUN!!!" Hoseok shouted as he came sprinting across the threshold.

"GET OUTTA HERE!!! GO GO GO!!!" Yoongi trailed along close behind him, just as multiple disembodied shrieks could be heard echoing up the basement steps.

"RUN!!!" Jeongguk told Jimin, as he began to run as well once Emily finally made it through.

Instead of choosing to **immediately follow them** , however, Jimin chose to **lock the basement door behind them**.

🦋

He moved to do so, just as two Wendigos made their presence known at the top of the steps with eardrum-piercing screams, causing Jimin to gasp out of fear as he quickly slammed the door shut and turned the deadbolt.

He followed the rest of them up the stairs into the living area, only to come to an instant halt at the sight of Hannah the Wendigo, where she clung to the chandelier in the very center of the high-ceiling.

"Don't... move... a fucking... _muscle_..." Jeongguk quietly warned him.

So **the five of them stood as still as they possibly could** , while the Wendigos from the basement promptly busted down the door to allow themselves entry.

🦋

Something else they never expected they'd see that night, was the way _the Wendigos began to fight one another_ , as if defending their territory.

As the creatures became somewhat distracted, they simultaneously destroyed several articles of furniture, as well as the stairs leading up to the top floor, and the gas line of the fireplace.

With gas now actively leaking into the air, Jeongguk raised a curious brow, as he was sure they could use that to their advantage somehow.

He slowly glanced to the right, where the bulb of a light fixture on the wall had been exposed by its missing lampshade. 

Then, his gaze slowly trailed over to the light switch by the front door.

When he glanced back at Jimin, the older man nodded his head slowly, as he'd been following along with Jeongguk's line of sight from the gas, to the bulb, to the switch.

So, while the Wendigos threw each other around and--quite literally--ripped each other to shreds, Jeongguk slowly began to sidestep over to the exposed lightbulb, leading Jimin to take a step in the opposite direction.

As he did so, however, the floorboards creaked beneath his shoes, **leading him to stay put when Hannah came crawling over** to investigate the noise.

🦋

With Hannah now distracted, Jeongguk was able to reach the fixture and squeeze the lightbulb until it inevitably shattered in his grip, no doubt slicing his palm up in the process.

Meanwhile, the rest of them slowly but surely made their way over to the front door, being sure to remain on high alert. Hannah could easily switch her focus onto one of them at any moment, and she'd only managed to kill _one_ of the two Wendigos from the basement as well.

The one with the scar--which Jeongguk had easily recognized from the photos in the sanatorium--seemed to have gone into hiding, patiently awaiting the precise moment to strike.

 **Yoongi was the first to make it outside** , whereupon he quickly found a hiding spot in the front yard, as **he refused to make a run for it without his friends**.

🦋

The sound of the lightbulb shattering, directed Hannah's attention away from Jimin and over to the opposite side of the room, where Jeongguk remained standing still.

So, rather than choosing to **run to the switch** , **Jimin chose to save Jeongguk** , by shouting out a brief, "HEY!!"

🦋

Hannah whipped back around with a vicious snarl and, while she approached Jimin's unmoving figure, **Emily was able to join Yoongi outside**.

🦋

Hannah couldn't see anything very clearly, however, so she obliviously turned away from Jimin after a few torturously prolonged moments.

Given the chance to **run for the switch** or hide, **Jimin chose to hide** behind a pillar instead, as Hoseok & Jeongguk were still hiding with him inside the lodge.

🦋

With his movements, Hannah craned her head toward him once more, **allowing for Hoseok to slip outside through the open front door**.

🦋

Hannah disregarded anything else when the scarred Wendigo returned to the scene, shrieking from the top floor of the lodge, and baiting Hannah into another brawl.

Given another chance to **run** or hide, **Jimin chose to stay hidden** , presenting Jeongguk with an opportunity to join the others outside.

🦋

So Jimin remained stagnant in his hiding spot against the pillar.

Then, Hannah drew closer and stared him directly in the eye, so he closed them and held his breath, while Hannah shrieked in his face.

Thanks to Jimin's selfless bravery, **Jeongguk managed to make it outside**.

🦋

The scarred Wendigo unintentionally acted as Jimin's savior in that moment, as it shoved Hannah away from the pillar, allowing Jimin to finally make a run for the switch.

As he sprinted toward the front door, the scarred Wendigo eagerly chased him and, if it wasn't for the fact that Hannah dove to tackle the other creature out of the air, it would've easily grabbed a hold of Jimin before he could make it.

However, **with a quick flip of the switch, the entirety of the lodge was suddenly imploding from within** , thus killing the Wendigos inside, and bringing the eventful night--as well as their annual winter tradition--to an end, once and for all.

🦋

The shockwaves of the fiery blast sent Jimin flying onto the grass at the bottom of the front porch steps, where he instinctively tucked & rolled to avoid any serious injury upon impact with the ground.

"Jimin!" Hoseok rushed to help him up, to which Jimin immediately wrapped his arms around him in a much needed hug.

As dawn broke, Yoongi, Emily, and Jeongguk emerged from their hiding spots as well and huddled around the hugging pair for comfort.

Then, as the Kim family lodge actively razed to the ground behind them, they were instantaneously relieved by the sound of helicopter blades whirring through the sky above them.

**\---**

**[POLICE INTERVIEW - ROOM 3]**

**YOONGI MIN:** The old man? I... I don't know how to describe him, I mean--

 **INT:** You said you thought he was stalking you at first. Did anyone else in your group think that?

 **YOONGI MIN:** Well, _yeah_ \--

 **INT:** Is it possible _they_ could've killed him?

 **YOONGI MIN:** What?? _No_. No, you don't understand. Don't you under--

 **INT:** Well, if he _attacked_ you...

 **YOONGI MIN:** _He_ _saved my life_... and _I watched him die_.

**\---**

**[POLICE INTERVIEW - ROOM 1]**

**HOSEOK JUNG:** I _heard_ _Taehyung_. I don't know _how_ or _why_ he was down there, but I _know_ I heard him...

 **INT:** What about Seokjin?

 **HOSEOK JUNG:** I-I stabbed him, and I tried to get away, but I didn't know! I _swear_ , I didn't know.

 **INT:** Didn't know...? Who did you stab?

 **HOSEOK JUNG:** I-I stabbed the _maniac_ \--I didn't know it was Jin! He was the psycho, but how was I supposed to know that Jin had all those saws, and the gun, and--oh, my _God_...

**\---**

**[POLICE INTERVIEW - ROOM 2]**

**EMILY DAVIS:** He held it _right up to my face_!! Right in front of my nose!! I mean, he could've _shot_ me!! He almost _shot me_ , the _prick_!! I mean, you go out with a guy for however long, and you think you know him, but _man_ this one _really_ takes the cake!

 **INT:** ...

 **EMILY DAVIS:** You bringing in Meatbrain next? Gonna kick him around a bit for me?

 **INT:** I'm sorry...?

 **EMILY DAVIS:** Meatbrain? Mr. Musclebrawn? Joon, the incredible _sulk_?

 **INT:** Is there something we need to know...?

 **EMILY DAVIS:** Oh, no! Nothing important! Except, um, you know, how he basically _left me to die up on a freakin' tumbling tower_ , _like a world class_ _douche nozzle_.

**\---**

**[POLICE INTERVIEW - ROOM 2]**

**NAMJOON KIM:** I was _right there_... and I could've done something--I _tried to do something_... but I wasn't good enough.

**\---**

**[POLICE INTERVIEW - ROOM 1]**

**INT:** How did you end up in the mines?

 **TAEHYUNG KIM:** I-I was... _carried_... a-and _taken_ , and--

 **INT:** What did you see?

 **TAEHYUNG KIM:** I don't know... I don't know.

 **INT:** Your friend Hoseok, he... told us he heard you in the basement of the lodge.

 **TAEHYUNG KIM:** No.

 **INT:** He said he heard you calling out.

 **TAEHYUNG KIM:** No... it wasn't me.

 **INT:** Okay... well, about Mr. Jeon--

 **TAEHYUNG KIM:** Jeongguk.

 **INT:** What do you remember?

 **TAEHYUNG KIM:** He came for me! He did!!

 **INT:** He came for you?

 **TAEHYUNG KIM:** Where is he?? Did he make it??

**\---**

**[POLICE INTERVIEW - ROOM 3]**

**JEONGGUK JEON:** H-He was out of his fucking mind. He wanted to _hurt us_ and... I thought he was the one who attacked Tae...

**\---**

**[POLICE INTERVIEW - ROOM 1]**

**JIMIN PARK:** I thought we were close... after his sisters disappeared, he'd come and talk to me. He said I was the only one who understood him. I thought... I thought we had a connection...

 **INT:** If you need someone to talk to--

 **JIMIN PARK:** I'm fine.

 **INT:** Sometimes, after a traumatic experience--

 **JIMIN PARK:** _I said I'm fine._

 **INT:** Alright.

 **JIMIN PARK:** You need to listen to me. I don't care if you believe me or not. It doesn't matter... because you _will_.

 **INT:** ...

 **JIMIN PARK:** You need to go down to the mines.

 **INT:** What's in the mines, Jimin?

 **JIMIN PARK:** I've seen what's down there... and I'd give _anything_ to unsee it.

**\---**

As the police carried out their latest investigation of the Blackwood Mines, they hadn't intended for it to shift from a simple investigation to a rescue mission, seemingly in the blink of an eye.

However, as an officer came across a figure curled up in the fetal position at the far side of a dead-end tunnel, they were pleasantly surprised to find that the figure was that of the Kims' missing son, Seokjin.

_"We have visual on a survivor. One survivor. Over."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I wish the ending of this game wasn't so short 😭
> 
> Also, SPOILER ALERT, at the end of the game, Josh (Jin's character) can suffer one of two fates; He can either be killed by Hannah or be left in the mines to starve and inevitably transform into a Wendigo.
> 
> However, I personally feel that Josh deserved a better outcome than that, so I rewrote the ending the slightest bit so everyone would be a survivor. 😌
> 
> If you're interested in reading more Bangtan versions of movies, games, etc. feel free to check out my other stories!
> 
> Your support is greatly appreciated!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> -Ken
> 
> 💜


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